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DOWN THE PERIBONCA 



LITTLE RIVERS 



® 55ooft of 660ai?s 
in ^rof if afife 3^fene60 



BY 

HENRY VAN DYKE 



"Aftfi mpfiose he take nothing, yet he enjoyeth a 
delightfidl walk by fleasant Rivers, in S7veet 
Pastures, amongst odoriferous Flo^vers, which 
gratifie his Senses, and delight his Mind; which 
Contentments induce many {who affect not An- 
gling) to choose those places of pleasure for their 
summer Recreation and Health." 

Col. Robert Venables, 
The Experienced A ngler, 1 662. 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
189s 



T6 3in 



Copyright, 1895, by 
Charles Scribner^s Sons. 




DEDICATION ^ 



To one who wanders by my side 
As cheerfully as waters glide ; 
Whose eyes are brown as woodland streams, 
And very fair and full of dreams ; 
Whose heart is like a mountain spring, 
Whose thoughts like merry rivers sing : 
To her — my little daughter Brooke — 
I dedicate this little book. 



CONTENTS 

I. Prelude i 

II. Little Rivers 7 

III. A Leaf of Spearmint • . • • • 33 

IV. Ampersand . . 59 

V. A Handful of Heather .... 81 

VI. The Restigouche from a Horse- Yacht . 115 
VII. Alpenrosen and Goat's-Milk . . .141 

VIII. Au Large 181 

IX. Trout-Fishing in the Traun . . . 219 

X. At the Sign of the Balsam Bough . 245 

XI. A Song after Sundown .... 279 

Index 283 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



TO FACE 
PAGE 



Down the Peribonca .... Frontispiece 

Like a Mirror Framed in Daisies .... 12 

The Wooded Stillwaters of the Penobscot . 18 

Floating on the Placid Cam 24 

The Tangle of Fallen Trees 28 

Joe La Croix 50 

The Governor 56 

Trouting 64 

An Adirondack Guide 68 

Ampersand Lake 76 

In the Pass of Glencoe 84 

The Linn of Dee 106 

The Salmon Leaps 132 

A Picturesque Way of Traveling . . . .138 

Summit of the Gross-Venediger .... 144 

Monte Nuvolau, as seen from the Alp Pocol , 160 

Lake Misurina, and the Drei Zinnen ... 164 

The Gross-Venediger from Inner Gschloss . . 176 

Shelter-Hut on the Gross-Venediger ... 178 

Cradle of the Saguenav 184 

The Grande Decharge 190 



Vlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Vache Caille Falls 198 

Fishing in the Foam 214 

One of the Sources of the Traun .... 226 

The Main Street of Hallstatt 232 

The Lake of Gosau with the Dachstein . . . 236 

The Lake of St. Wolfgang 240 

" And every day go forth to fish on foaming 

streams for Ouananiche " 248 

My Lady Greygown 252 

"Une Belle" 258 

The Camp on the Island 271 



PRELUDE 



AN ANGLER'S WISH IN TOWN 



When tulips bloom in Union Square, 
And timid breaths of vernal air 

Are wandering down the dusty town, 
Like children lost in Vanity Fair ; 

When every long, unlovely row 
Of westward houses seems to go 

Toward sunset skies that rest the eyes, 
And hills beyond, where green trees grow ; 

Then weary is the street parade. 
And weary books, and weary trade : 
I 'm only wishing to go a-fishing ; 
For this the month of May was made. 



I guess the pussy-willows now 
Are creeping out on every bough 

Along the brook ; and robins look 
For early worms behind the plough. 



AN ANGLEWS WISH IN TOWN 

The thistle-birds have changed their dim 
For yellow coats to match the sun ; 

And in the same array of flame 
The Dandelion Show 's begun. 

The flocks of young anemones 

Are dancing round the budding trees : 

Who can help wishing to go a-fishing 
In days as full of joy as these ? 



)S 



I think the meadow-lark's clear sound 
Leaks upward slowly from the ground, 

While on the wing the bluebirds ring 
Their wedding-bells to woods around : 

The flirting chewink calls his dear 
Behind the bush ; and very near, 

Where water flows, where green grass grows, 
Song-sparrows gently sing, " Good cheer : " 

And, best of all, through twilight's calm 
The hermit-thrush repeats his psalm : 

How much I 'm wishing to go a-fishing 
In days so sweet with music's balm ! 



% 



*T is not a proud desire of mine ; 
I ask for nothing superfine ; 

No heavy weight, no salmon great. 
To break the record, or my line : 



AN ANGLER'S WISH IN TOWN 

Only an idle little stream, 
Whose amber waters softly gleam, 

Where I may wade, through woodland shade, 
And cast the fly, and loaf, and dream : 

Only a trout or two, to dart 

From foaming pools, and try my art : 

No more I'm wishing — old-fashioned fishing. 
And just a day on Nature's heart. 
6 



LITTLE RIVERS 



" TJure''s no music like a little river's. It plays the same tune (and 
that 'j the/avotirite) over and over again, and yet does not weary of it 
like men fiddlers. It takes the tnifid out of doors ; and though we 
should be grateful for good houses, there is, after all, no house like 
God's out-of-doors. A nd lastly, sir, it quiets a man dowtt like saying 
his prayers. ^^ — Robert Louis Stevenson : Prince Otto. 



LITTLE RIVERS 

A RIVER is the most human and companion- 
able of all inanimate things. It has a life, a 
character, a voice of its own, and is as full of 
good fellowship as a sugar-maple is of sap. It 
can talk in various tones, loud or low, and of 
many subjects, grave and gay. Under favour- 
able circumstances it will even make a shift to 
sing, not in a fashion that can be reduced to 
notes and set down in black and white on a sheet 
of paper, but in a vague, refreshing manner, and 
to a wandering air that goes 

" Over the hills and far away." 

For real company and friendship, there is 
nothing outside of the animal kingdom that is 
comparable to a river. 

I will admit that a very good case can be 
made out in favour of some other objects of nat- 
ural affection. For example, a fair apology has 
been offered by those ambitious persons who 
have fallen in love with the sea. But, after all, 
that is a formless and disquieting passion. It 

9 



LITTLE BIVEBS 

lacks solid comfort and mutual confidence. The 
sea is too big for loving, and too uncertain. It 
will not fit into our tliouglits. It has no per- 
sonality because it has so many. It is a salt 
abstraction. You might as well think of lov- 
ing a glittering generality like " the American 
woman." One would be more to the purpose. 

Mountains are more satisfying because they 
are more individual. It is possible to feel a very 
strong attachment for a certain range whose out- 
line has grown familiar to our eyes, or a clear 
peak that has looked down, day after day, upon 
our joys and sorrows, moderating our passions 
with its calm aspect. We come back from our 
travels, and the sight of such a well-known 
mountain is like meeting an old friend un- 
chanofed. But it is a one-sided affection. The 
mountain is voiceless and imperturbable ; and its 
very loftiness and serenity sometimes make us 
the more lonely. 

Trees seem to come closer to our life. They 
are often rooted in our richest feelings, and our 
sweetest memories, like birds, build nests in their 
branches. I remember, the last time that I saw 
James Kussell Lowell, (only a few weeks before 
his musical voice was hushed,) he walked out 
with me into the quiet garden at Elmwood to 
say good-bye. There was a great horse-chestnut 
tree beside the house, towering above the gable, 

10 



LITTLE RIVERS 

and covered with blossoms from base to sum- 
mit, — a 2)yramid of green supporting a thousand 
smaller pyramids of white. The poet looked up 
at it with his gray, pain-furrowed face, and laid 
his trembling hand upon the trunk. " I planted 
the nut," said he, " from which this tree grew. 
And my father was with me and showed me how 
to plant it." 

Yes, there is a good deal to be said in behalf 
of tree-worship ; and when I recline with my 
friend Tityrus beneath the shade of his favour- 
ite oak, I consent in his devotions. But when I 
invite him with me to share my orisons, or wan- 
der alone to indulge the luxury of grateful, un- 
laborious thought, my feet turn not to a tree, 
but to the bank of a river, for there the musings 
of solitude find a friendly accompaniment, and 
human intercourse is purified and sweetened by 
the flowing, murmuring water. It is by a river 
that I would choose to make love, and to revive 
old friendships, and to play with the children, 
and to confess my faults, and to escape from 
vain, selfish desires, and to cleanse my mind 
from all the false and foolish things that mar 
the joy and peace of living. Like David's hart, 
I pant for the water-brooks, and would follow 
the advice of Seneca, who says, " Where a spring 
rises, or a river flows, there should we build 
altars and offer sacrifices." 

U 



LITTLE BIVERS 

The personality of a river is not to be found 
in its water, nor in its bed, nor in its shore. 
Either of these elements, by itself, would be 
nothing. Confine the fluid contents of the 
noblest stream in a walled channel of stone, and 
it ceases to be a stream ; it becomes what 
Charles Lamb calls "a mockery of a river — 
a liquid artifice — a wretched conduit." But 
take away the water from the most beautiful 
river-banks, and what is left ? An ugly road 
with none to travel it ; a long, ghastly scar on 
the bosom of the earth. 

The life of a river, like that of a human 
being, consists in the union of soul and body, 
the water and the banks. They belong together. 
They act and react upon each other. The 
stream moulds and makes the shore ; hollowing 
out a bay here, and building a long point there ; 
alluring the little bushes close to its side, and 
bending the tall slim trees over its current ; 
sweeping a rocky ledge clean of everything but 
moss, and sending a still lagoon full of white 
arrow-heads and rosy knot-weed far back into 
the meadow. The shore guides and controls the 
stream; now detaining and now a^dvancing it; 
now bending it in a hundred sinuous curves, and 
now speeding it straight as a wild-bee on its 
homeward flight ; here hiding the water in a deep 
cleft overhung with green branches, and there 

12 



m:t 





Q 



T3 



^ 
J 



LITTLE EIVERS 

spreading it out, like a mirror framed in daisies, 
to reflect tlie sky and the clouds; sometimes 
breaking it with sudden turns and unexpected 
falls into a foam of musical laughter, sometimes 
soothing it into a sleepy motion like the flow of 
a dream. 

And is it otherwise with the men and women 
whom we know and like ? Does not the spirit 
influence the form, and the form affect the 
spirit ? Can we divide and separate them in our 
affections ? 

I am no friend to purely psychological attach- 
ments. In some unknown future they may be 
satisfying, but in the present I want your words 
and your voice, with your thoughts, your looks 
and your gestures, to interpret your feelings. 
The warm, strong grasp of Greatheart's hand is 
as dear to me as the steadfast fashion of his 
friendships ; the lively, sparkling eyes of the 
master of Rudder Grange charm me as much as 
the nimbleness of his fancy ; and the firm poise 
of the Hoosier Schoolmaster's shaggy head gives 
me new confidence in the solidity of his views 
of life. I like the pure tranquillity of Isabel's 
brow as well as her 

" most silver flow 
Of subtle-pac^cl counsel in distress." 

The soft cadences and turns in my lady Ka- 
trina's speech draw me into the humour of her 

13 



LITTLE RIVERS 

gentle judgments of men and things. The 
touches of quaintness in Angelica's dress, her 
folded kerchief and smooth-parted hair, seem to 
partake of herself, and enhance my admiration 
for the sweet order of her thoughts and her old- 
fashioned ideals of love and duty. Even so the 
stream and its channel are one life, and I cannot 
think of the swift, brown flood of the Batiscan 
without its shadowing primeval forests, or the 
crystalline current of the Boquet without its beds 
of pebbles and golden sand and grassy banks 
embroidered with flowers. 

Every country — or at least every country 
that is fit for habitation — has its own rivers ; 
and every river has its own quality ; and it is 
the part of wisdom to know and love as many 
as you can, seeing each in the fairest possible 
light, and receiving from each the best that it 
has to give. The torrents of Norway leap down 
from their mountain homes with plentiful cata- 
racts, and run brief but glorious races to the 
sea. The streams of England move smoothly 
through green fields and beside ancient, sleepy 
towns. The Scotch rivers brawl through the 
open moorland and flash along steej) Highland 
glens. The rivers of the Alps are born in icy 
caves, from which they issue forth with furious, 
turbid waters ; but when their anger has been 
forgotten in the slumber of some blue lake, they 

14 



LITTLE BIVERS 

flow down more softly to see the vineyards of 
France and Italy, tlie gray castles of Germany, 
and the verdant meadows of Holland. The 
mighty rivers of the West roll their yellow floods 
through broad valleys, or plunge down dark 
canons. The rivers of the South creep under 
dim arboreal archways heavy with banners of 
waving moss. The Delaware and the Hudson 
and the Connecticut are the children of the 
Catskills and the Adirondacks and the White 
Mountains, cradled among the forests of spruce 
and hemlock, playing through a wild woodland 
youth, gathering strength from nmnberless tribu- 
taries to bear their great burdens of lumber 
and turn the wheels of many mills, issuing from 
the hills to water a thousand farms, and descend- 
ing at last, beside new cities, to the ancient sea. 

Every river that flows is good, and has some- 
thing worthy to be loved. But those that we 
love most are always the ones that we have 
known best, — the stream that ran before our 
father's door, the current on which we ventured 
our first boat or cast oui* first fly, the brook on 
whose banks we first picked the twinflower of 
young love. However far we may travel, we 
come back to Naaman's state of mind : " Are 
not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, 
better than all the waters of Israel ? " 

It is with rivers as it is with people : the 

15 



LITTLE BIVEBS 

greatest are not always the most agreeable, 
nor the best to live with. Diogenes must have 
been an uncomfortable bedfellow : Antinoiis 
was bored to death in the society of the Em- 
peror Hadrian: and you can imagine much 
better company for a walking-trip than Napo- 
leon Bonaj)arte. Semiramis was a lofty queen, 
but I fancy that Ninus had more than one bad 
quarter-of-an-hour with her : and in " the spa- 
cious times of great Elizabeth " there was many 
a milkmaid whom the wise man would have 
chosen for his friend, before the royal red- 
haired virgin. " I confess,'' says the poet Cow- 
ley, " I love Littleness almost in all things. A 
little convenient Estate, a little chearfid House, 
a little Company, and a very little Feast, and if 
I were ever to fall in Love again, (which is 
a great Passion, and therefore, I hope, I have 
done with it,) it would be, I think, with Pret- 
tiness, rather than with Majestical Beauty. I 
would neither "svish that my Mistress, nor my 
Fortune, should be a Bona Roha^ as Homer 
uses to describe his Beauties, like a daughter of 
great Jiqyiter for the stateliness and largeness of 
her Person, but as Lucretius says : 

' Parvula,pu7nilio, Xap'nuv fiia, tota merum sal.^^^ 

Now in talking about women it is prudent to 
disguise a prejudice like this, in the security of 

16 



LITTLE RIVERS 

a dead language, and to entrencli it behind a 
fortress of reputable authority. But in lowlier 
and less dangerous matters, such as we are now 
concerned with, one may dare to speak in plain 
English. I am all for the little rivers. Let 
those who will, chant in heroic verse the renown 
of Amazon and Mississippi and Niagara, but 
my prose shall flow — or straggle along at such 
a pace as the prosaic muse may grant me to 
attain — in praise of Beaverkill and Never- 
sink and Swiftwater, of Saranac and Raquette 
and Ausable, of Allegash and Aroostook and 
Moose River. " Whene'er I take my walks 
abroad," it shall be to trace the clear Rauma 
from its rise on the fjeld to its rest in the 
fjord ; or to follow the Ericht and the Halla- 
dale through the heather. The Ziller and the 
Salzach shall be my guides through the Tyrol ; 
the Rotha and the Dove shall lead me into the 
heart of England. My sacrificial flames shall 
be kindled with birch-bark along the wooded 
stillwaters of the Penobscot and the Peribonca, 
and my libations drawn from the pure current 
of the Restigouche and the Ampersand, and my 
altar of remembrance shall rise upon the rocks 
beside the falls of Seboomok. 

I will set my affections upon rivers that are 
not too great for intimacy. And if by chance 
any of these little ones have also become famous, 

17 



LITTLE BIVERS 

like the Tweed and the Thames and the Arno, I 
at least will praise them, because they are still 
at heart little rivers. 

If an open fire is, as Charles Dudley Warner 
says, the eye of a room ; then surely a little 
river may be called the mouth, the most expres- 
sive feature, of a landscape. It animates and 
enlivens the whole scene. Even a railway jour- 
ney becomes tolerable when the track follows 
the course of a running stream. 

What charming glimpses you catch from the 
window as the train winds along the valley of 
the French Broad from Asheville, or climbs the 
southern Catskills beside the ^sopus, or slides 
down the Pusterthal with the Rienz, or follows 
the Glommen and the Gula from Christiania to 
Throndhjem. Here is a mill with its dripping, 
lazy wheel, the type of somnolent industry ; and 
there is a white cascade, foaming in silent pan- 
tomime as the train clatters by; and here is a 
long, still pool with the cows standing knee-deep 
in the water and swinging their tails in calm 
indifference to the passing world ; and there is 
a lone fisherman sitting upon a rock, rapt in 
contemplation of the point of his rod. For a 
moment you become the partner of his tranquil 
enterprise. You turn around, you crane your 
neck to get the last sight of his motionless 
angle. You do not know what kind of fish he 

18 




o 



CO 

O 
O 



LITTLE RIVERS 

expects to catcli, nor what species of bait lie is 
using, but at least you pray that he may have 
a bite before the train swings around the next 
curve. And if perchance your wish is granted, 
and you see him gravely draw some unknown, 
reluctant, shining reward of patience from the 
water, you feel like swinging your hat from the 
window and crying out " Good luck ! " 

Little rivers seem to have the indefinable 
quality that belongs to certain people in the 
world, — the power of drawing attention with- 
out courting it, the faculty of exciting interest 
by their very i)resence and way of doing things. 
The most fascinating part of a city or town 
is that through which the water flows. Idlers 
always choose a bridge for their place of medi- 
tation when they can get it ; and, failing that, 
you will find them sitting on the edge of a quay 
or embanlvinent, with their feet hanging over the 
water. What a piquant mingling of indolence 
and vivacity you can enjoy by the river-side ! 
The best point of view in Eome, to my taste, is 
the Ponte San Angelo ; and in Florence or Pisa 
I never tire of loafing along the Lung' Arno. 
You do not know London until you have seen it 
from the Thames. And you will miss the charm 
of Cambridge unless j^ou take a little boat and 
go drifting on the placid Cam, beneath the bend- 
ing trees, along the backs of the colleges. 

19 



LITTLE BIVERS 

But the real way to know a little river is not 
to glance at it here or there in the course of a 
hasty journey, nor to become acquainted with 
it after it has been partly civilized and partly 
spoiled by too close contact with the works of 
man. You must go to its native haunts; you 
must see it in youth and freedom ; you must 
accommodate yourself to its pace, and give your- 
self to its influence, and follow its meanderings 
whithersoever they may lead you. 

Now, of this pleasant pastime there are three 
principal forms. You may go as a walker, tak- 
ing the river-side path, or making a way for 
yourself through the tangled thickets or across 
the open meadows. You may go as a sailor, 
launching your light canoe on the swift current 
and committing yourself for a day, or a week, 
or a month, to the delightful uncertainties of 
a voyage through the forest. You may go as 
a wader, stepping into the stream and going 
down with it, through rapids and shallows and 
deeper pools, until you come to the end of your 
courage and the daylight. Of these three ways 
I know not which is best. But in all of them 
the essential thing is that you must be willing 
and glad to be led ; you must take the little 
river for your guide, philosopher, and friend. 

And what a good guidance it gives you. How 
cheerfully it lures you on into the secrets of 

20 



LITTLE BIVERS 

field and wood, and brings you acquainted with 
the birds and the flowers. The stream can show 
you, better than any other teacher, how nature 
works her enchantments with colour and music. 
Go out to the Beaver-kill 

" In the tassel-time of spring-," 

and follow its brimming waters through the bud- 
ding forests, to that corner which we call the 
Painter's Camp. See how the banks are all en- 
amelled with the pale hepatica, the painted tril- 
lium, and the delicate pink-veined spring beauty. 
A little later in the year, when the ferns are 
uncurling their long fronds, the troops of blue 
and white violets will come dancing down to 
the edge of the stream, and creep venturously out 
to the very end of that long, moss-covered log 
in the water. Before these have vanished, the 
yellow crow-foot and the cinquefoil will appear, 
followed by the star-grass and the loose-strife 
and the golden St. John's-wort. Then the un- 
seen painter begins to mix the royal colour on 
his palette, and the red of the bee-balm catches 
your eye. If you are lucky, you may find, in 
midsummer, a slender fragrant sjDike of the 
purple-fringed orchis, and you cannot help find- 
ing the universal self-heal. Yellow returns in 
the drooping flowers of the jewel-weed, and blue 
repeats itself in the trembling hare-bells, and 

21 



LITTLE BIVEES 

scarlet is glorified iu the flaming robe of the 
cardiual-flower. Later still, the summer closes 
in a splendour of bloom, with gentians and 
asters and goldenrod. 

You never get so close to the birds as when 
you are wading quietly down a little river, cast- 
ing your fly deftly under the branches for the 
wary trout, but ever on the lookout for all the 
various pleasant things that nature has to be- 
stow upon you. Here you shall come upon the 
cat-bird at her morning bath, and hear her sing, 
in a clump of pussy-willows, that low, tender, 
confidential song which she keeps for the hours 
of domestic intimacy. The sj^otted sandpiper 
will run along the stones before you, crying, 
" icet-feet^ ii^et-feet 1 " and bowing and teetering 
in the friendliest manner, as if to show you the 
way to the best pools. In the thick branches 
of the hemlocks that stretch across the stream, 
the tiny warblers, dressed in a hundred colours, 
chirp and twitter confidingly above your head ; 
and the Maryland yellow-throat, flitting through 
the bushes like a little gleam of sunlight, calls 
''^ witchery^ witchery^ icitchery ! ''^ That plain- 
tive, forsaken, persistent note, never ceasing, 
even in the noonday silence, conies from the 
wood-pewee, drooping upon the bough of some 
high tree, and complaining, like Mariana in the 
moated grange, " iceary^ iceary, weary ! " 

22 



LITTLE BIVERS 

Wlien the stream runs out into the old clear- 
ing, or do^NTi through the pasture, you find other 
and livelier birds, — the robin, with his sharp, 
saucy call and breathless, merry warble ; the 
bluebird, with his notes of pure gladness, and 
the oriole, with his wild, flexible whistle ; the 
chewink, bustling about in the thicket, talking 
to his sweetheart in French, " cherie^ cherie ! " 
and the song-sparrow, perched on his favourite 
limb of a young maple, close beside the water, 
and singing happily, through sunshine and 
through rain. This is the true bird of the 
brook, after all, the -ss^inged spirit of cheerful- 
ness and contentment, the patron saint of little 
rivers, the fisherman's friend. He seems to 
enter into your sport with his good wishes, and 
for an hour at a time, while you are trying every 
fly in your book, from a black gnat to a white 
miller, to entice the crafty old trout at the foot 
of the meadow-pool, the song-sparrow, close 
above you, will be chanting patience and en- 
couragement. And when at last success crowns 
your endeavour, and the parti-coloured prize is 
glittering in your net, the bird on the bough 
breaks out in an ecstasy of congratulation : 
"cafc/i'm, catch ^bn, catch 'im; oh, what a 
pretty fellow ! sweet ! " 

There are other birds that seem to have a very 
different temper. The blue-jay sits high up in 

23 



LITTLE BIVERS 

the withered-pine tree, bobbing up and down, 
and calling to his mate in a tone of affected 
sweetness, " salute-}iei\ saluU-lier^^ but when 
you come in sight he flies away with a harsh cry 
of " thief ^ thief ^ thief! " The kingfisher, ruf- 
fling his crest in solitary pride on the end of a 
dead branch, darts down the stream at your 
approach, winding up his reel angrily as if he 
despised you for interrupting his fishing. And 
the cat-bird, that sang so charmingly while she 
thought herself unobserved, now tries to scare 
you away by screaming " snahe^ snahe ! " 

As evening draws near, and the light beneath 
the trees grows yellower, and the air is full of 
filmy insects out for their last dance, the voice 
of the little ri^^er becomes louder and more dis- 
tinct. The true poets have often noticed this 
apparent increase in the sound of flowing waters 
at nightfall. Gray, in one of his letters, speaks 
of " hearing the murmur of many waters not au- 
dible in the daytime." Wordsworth repeats the 
same thought almost in the same words : 

"A soft and lulling sound is heard 
Of streams inaudible by day." 

And Tennyson, in the valley of Cauteretz, tells 
of the river 

" Deepening his voice with deepening of the night." 

It is in this mystical hour that you will 

24 




Drifting" on the placid Cam 



LITTLE BIVERS 

hear the most celestial and entrancing of all bird- 
notes, the songs of the thrushes, — the hermit, 
and the wood-thrush, and the veery. Sometimes, 
but not often, you will see the singers. I re- 
member once, at the close of a beautiful day's 
fishing on the Swiftwater, I came out just after 
sunset into a little open space in an elbow of 
the stream. It was still early spring, and the 
leaves were tiny. On the toj) of a small sumac, 
not thirty feet away from me, sat a veery. I 
could see the pointed spots upon his breast, the 
swelling of his white throat, and the sparkle of 
his eyes, as he poured his whole heart into a 
long liquid chant, the clear notes rising and 
falling, echoing and interlacing in endless curves 
of sound, 

" Orb witHu orb, intricate, wonderful." 

Other bird-songs can be translated into words, 
but not this. There is no interpretation. It is 
music, — as Sidney Lanier defines it, — 

" Love in search of a word." 

But it is not only to the real life of birds 
and flowers that the little rivers introduce you. 
They lead you often into familiarity with human 
nature in undress, rejoicing in the liberty of old 
clothes, or of none at all. People do not mince 
along the banks of streams in patent-leather 
shoes or crepitating silks. Corduroy and home- 

25 



LITTLE RIVERS 

spun and flannel are tlie stuffs that suit this 
region ; and the frequenters of these paths go 
their natural gaits, in calf -skin or rubber boots, 
or bare-footed. The girdle of conventionality is 
laid aside, and the skirts rise with the spirits. 

A stream that flows through a country of up- 
land farms will show you many a pretty bit of 
gewe painting. Here is the laundry-pool at the 
foot of the kitchen garden, and the tubs are set 
upon a few planks close to the water, and the 
farmer's daughters, with bare arms and gowns 
tucked up, are wringing out the clothes. Do 
you remember what happened to Ralph Peden in 
The Lilac Sunhonnet when he came on a scene 
like this ? He tumbled at once into love with 
Winsome Charteris, — and far over his head. 

And what a pleasant thing it is to see a little 
country lad riding one of the plough-horses to 
water, thumping his naked heels against the ribs 
of his stolid steed, and pulling hard on the hal- 
ter as if it were the bridle of Bucephalus ! Or 
perhaps it is a riotous company of boys that 
have come down to the old swimming-hole, and 
are now splashing and gambolling through the 
water like a drove of white seals very much sun- 
burned. You had hoped to catch a goodly 
trout in that hole, but what of that ? The sight 
of a harmless hour of mirth is better than a fish, 
any day. 

26 



LITTLE BIVERS 

Possibly you will overtake another fisherman 
on the stream. It may be one of those fabulous 
countrymen, with long cedar poles and bed-cord 
lines ; who are commonly reported to catch such 
enormous strings of fish, but who rarely, so far 
as my observation goes, do anything more than 
fill their pockets with fingerlings. The trained 
angler, who uses the finest tackle, and drops his 
fly on the water as accurately as Henry James 
places a word in a story, is the man who takes 
the most and the largest fish in the long run. 
Perhaps the fisherman ahead of you is such an 
one, — a man whom you have known in town as 
a lawyer or a doctor, a merchant or a preacher, 
going about his business in the hideous respect- 
ability of a high silk hat and a long black coat. 
How good it is to see him now in the freedom 
of a flannel shirt and a broad-brimmed gray felt 
with flies stuck around the band. • 

In Professor John Wilson's Essays Cntical 
and Imaginative^ there is a brilliant description 
of a bishop fishing, which I am sure is neither 
imaginative nor critical. " Thus a bishop, sans 
wig and petticoat, in a hairy cap, black jacket, 
corduroy breeches and leathern leggins, creel on 
back and rod in hand, sallying from his palace, 
impatient to reach a famous salmon-cast ere the 
sun leave his cloud, . . . appears not only a 
pillar of his church, but of his kind, and in such 

27 



LITTLE BIVEBS 

a costume is manifestly on tile high road to Can- 
terbury and the Kingdom-Come." I have had 
the good luck to see quite a number of bishops, 
parochial and diocesan, in that style, and the 
vision has always dissolved my doubts in regard 
to the validity of their claim to the true apostolic 
succession. 

Men's " little ways " are usually more inter- 
esting, and often more instructive than their 
grand manners. When they are off guard, they 
frequently show to better advantage than when 
they are on parade. I get more pleasure out of 
Boswell's Johnson than I do out of Hasselas 
or The Hamhler, The Little Floioers of St. 
Francis appear to me far more precious than 
the most learned German and French analyses 
of his character. There is a passage in Jona- 
than Edwards' Personal Narrative^ about a cer- 
tain walk that he took in the fields near his 
father's house, and the blossoming of the flowers 
in the spring, which I would not exchange for 
the whole of his dissertation On the Freedom 
of the WilL And the very best thing of 
Charles Darwin's that I know is a bit from a 
letter to his wife : " At last I fell asleep," says 
he, " on the grass, and awoke with a chorus of 
birds singing around me, and squirrels running 
up the tree, and some woodpeckers laughing; 
and it was as pleasant and rural a scene as ever 

28 



LITTLE RIVERS 

I saw ; and I did not care one penny how any 
of the birds or beasts had been formed." 

Little rivers have small responsibilities. They 
are not expected to bear huge navies on their 
breast or supply a hundred-thousand horse-power 
to the factories of a monstrous town. Neither 
do you come to them hoping to draw out Levi- 
athan with a hook. It is enough if they run a 
harmless, amiable course, and keep the groves 
and fields green and fresh along their banks, 
and offer a happy alternation of nimble rapids 
and quiet pools, 

" With here and there a lusty trout, 
And here and there a grayling'." 

When you set out to explore one of these 
minor streams in your canoe, you have no inten- 
tion of epoch-making discoveries, or thrilling 
and world-famous adventures. You float placidly 
down the long stillwaters, and make your way 
patiently through the tangle of fallen trees that 
block the stream, and run the smaller falls, and 
carry your boat around the larger ones, with no 
loftier ambition than to reach a good camp- 
ground before dark and to pass the intervening 
hours pleasantly, "without offence to God or 
man." It is an agreeable and advantageous 
frame of mind for one who has done his fair 
share of work in the world, and is not inclined 
to grumble at his wages. There are few moods 

29 



LITTLE RIVERS 

in which we are more susceptible of gentle in- 
struction ; and I suspect there are many tem- 
pers and attitudes, often called virtuous, in 
which the human spirit appears less tolerable in 
the sight of Heaven. 

It is not required of every man and woman 
to be, or to do, something great ; most of us 
must content ourselves with taking small parts 
in the chorus, as far as possible without discord. 
Shall we have no little lyrics because Homer 
and Dante have written epics ? And because we 
have heard the great organ at Freiburg, shall 
the sound of Kathi's zither in the alpine hut 
please us no more ? Even those who have great- 
ness thrust upon them will do well to lay the 
burden down now and then, and congratulate 
themselves that they are not altogether answer- 
able for the conduct of the universe, or at least 
not all the time. " I reckon," said a cow-boy 
to me one day, as we were riding through the 
Bad Lands of Dakota, " there 's some one bigger 
than me, running this outfit. He can 'tend to 
it well enough, while I smoke my pipe after the 
round-up." 

There is such a thing as taking ourselves 
and the world too seriously, or at any rate too 
anxiously. Half of the secular unrest and dis- 
mal, profane sadness of modern society comes 
from the vain idea that every man is bound to 

30 



LITTLE RIVERS 

be a critic of life, and to let no day pass with- 
out finding some fault with the general order of 
things, or projecting some plan for its improve- 
ment. And the other half comes from the 
greedy notion that a man's life does consist, 
after all, in the abundance of the things that 
he possesseth, and that it is somehow or other 
more respectable and pious to be always at work 
making a larger living, than it is to lie on your 
back in the green pastures and beside the still 
waters, and thank God that you are alive. 

Come, then, my gentle reader, (for by this 
time you see that this chapter is only a preface 
in disguise, — a declaration of principles or the 
want of them, an apology or a defence, as you 
choose to take it,) and if we are agreed, let us 
walk together ; but if not, let us part here with- 
out ill-will. 

You shall not be deceived in this book. It 
is nothing but a handful of rustic variations on 
the old tune of " Rest and be thankful," a rec- 
ord of unconventional travel, a pilgrim's scrip 
with a few bits of blue-sky philosophy in it. 
There is, so far as I know, very little useful in- 
formation and absolutely no criticism of the uni- 
verse to be found in this volume. So if you 
are what Izaak Walton calls "a severe, sour- 
complexioned man," you would better carry it 
back to the bookseller, and get your money 

31 



LITTLE BIVEBS 

again, if lie will give it to you, and go your way 
rejoicing after your own melanclioly fashion. 

But if you care for plain pleasures, and in- 
formal company, and friendly observations on 
men and things, (and a few true fish-stories,) 
then perhaps you may find something here not 
unworthy your perusal. And so I wish that 
your winter fire may burn clear and bright 
while you read these pages ; and that the sum- 
mer days may be fair, and the fish may rise 
merrily to your fly, whenever you follow one of 
these little rivers. 

32 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

RECOLLECTIONS OF A BOY AND A ROD 



It puzzles me now, tJiat I remember all these young impressions so, be- 
cause I took 710 heed of tJiem at the time zvhaiever ; and yet they come 
upon me bright, when nothing else is evident in tJte gray fog of experi- 
ence. — R. D. Blackmore: Lorna Doone. 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

Of all the faculties of the human mind, mem- 
ory is the one that is most easily led by the nose. 
There is a secret power in the sense of smell 
wliich draws the mind backward into the pleasant 
land of old times. 

If you could paint a picture of memory in 
the symbolical manner of Quarles's Emhlems it 
should represent a man travelling the highway 
with a dusty pack upon his shoulders, and stoop- 
ing to draw in a long, sweet breath from the 
small, deep-red, golden-hearted flowers of an old- 
fashioned rose-tree straggling through the fence 
of a neglected garden. Or perhaps, for a choice 
of emblems, you would better take a yet more 
homely and familiar scent: the cool fragrance 
of lilacs drifting through the June morning from 
the old bush that stands between the kitchen 
door and the well ; the warm layer of pungent, 
aromatic air that floats over the tansy-bed in a 
still July noon ; the drowsy dew of odour that 
falls from the big balm-of-Gilead tree by the 
roadside as you are driving homeward through 

35 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

the twilight of August ; or, best of all, the clean, 
spicy, unexpected, unmistakable smell of a bed 
of spearmint — that is the bed whereon memory 
loves to lie and dream ! 

Why not choose mint as the symbol of re- 
membrance? It is the true spice -tree of our 
Northern clime, the myrrh and frankincense of 
the land of lingering snow. When its perfume 
rises, the shrines of the past are unveiled, and 
the magical rites of reminiscence begin. 

I. 

You are fishing down the Swiftwater in the 
early Spring. In a shallow pool, which the 
drought of summer will soon change into dry 
land, you see the pale-green shoots of a little 
plant thrusting themselves up between the peb- 
bles, and just beginning to overtop the falling 
water. You pluck a leaf of it as you turn out 
of the stream to find a comfortable place for 
lunch, and, rolling it between your fingers to see 
whether it smells like a good salad for your 
bread and cheese, you discover suddenly that it 
is new mint. For the rest of that day you are 
bewitched ; you follow a stream that runs through 
the country of Auld Lang Syne, and fill your 
creel with the recollections of a boy and a rod. 

And yet, strangely enough, you cannot recall 
the boy himself at all distinctly. There is only 

36 



I 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

the faintest image of him on the endless roll of 
films that has been wound through your mental 
camera : and in the very spots where his small 
figure should appear, it seems as if the pictures 
were always light-struck. Just a blur, and the 
dim outline of a new cap, or a well-beloved 
jacket with extra pockets, or a much-hated pair 
of copper-toed shoes — that is all you can see. 

But the people that the boy saw, the compan- 
ions who helped or hindered him in his adven- 
tures, the sublime and marvellous scenes among 
the Catskills and the Adirondacks and the Green 
Mountains, in the midst of which he lived and 
moved and had his summer holidays — all these 
standout sharp and clear, as the '' Bab Ballads " 
say, 

" Photographically lined 
On the tablets of your mind." 

And most vivid do these scenes and people be- 
come when the vague and irrecoverable boy who 
walks among them carries a rod over his shoul- 
der, and you detect the soft bulginess of wet fish 
about his clothing, and perhaps the tail of a big 
one emerging from his pocket. Then it seems 
almost as if these were things that had really 
happened, and of which you yourself were a great 

part. 

The rod was a reward, yet not exactly of 
merit. It was an instrument of education in 

37 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

the hand of a father less indiscriminate than 
Solomon, who chose to interpret the text in a 
new way, and preferred to educate his child by 
encouraging him in pursuits which were harm- 
less and wholesome, rather than by chastising 
him for practices which would likely enough 
never have been thought of, if they had not been 
forbidden. The boy enjoyed this kind of father 
at the time, and later he came to understand, 
with a grateful heart, that there is no richer in- 
heritance in all the treasury of unearned bless- 
ings. For, after all, the love, the patience, the 
kindly wisdom of a grown man who can enter 
into the perplexities and turbulent impulses of 
a boy's heart, and give him cheerful companion- 
ship, and lead him on by free and joyful ways 
to know and choose the things that are pure and 
lovely and of good report, make as fair an image 
as we can find of that loving, patient Wisdom 
which must be above us all if any good is to 
come out of our childish race. 

Now this was the way in which the boy came 
into possession of his undreaded rod. He was 
by nature and heredity one of those predestined 
anglers whom Izaak Walton tersely describes as 
"born so." His earliest passion was fishing. 
His favourite passage in Holy Writ was that 
place where Simon Peter throws a line into the 
sea and pulls out a great fish at the first cast. 

38 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

But hitherto his passion had been indulged 
under difficulties — with improvised apparatus of 
cut poles, and flabby pieces of string, and bent 
pins, which always failed to hold the biggest 
fish ; or perhaps with borrowed tackle, dangling 
a fat worm in vain before the noses of the star- 
ing, supercilious sunfish that poised themselves 
in the clear water around the Lake House dock 
at Lake George ; or, at best, on picnic parties 
across the lake, marred by the humiliating pres- 
ence of nurses, and disturbed by the obstinate 
refusal of old Horace, the boatman, to believe 
that the boy could bait his own hook, but some- 
times crowned with the delight of bringing home 
a whole basketful of yellow perch and goggle- 
eyes. Of nobler sport with game fish, like the 
vaulting salmon and the merry, pugnacious 
trout, as yet the boy had only dreamed. But 
he had heard that there were such fish in the 
streams that flowed down from the mountains 
around Lake George, and he was at the happy 
age when he could believe anything — if it was 
sufficiently interesting. » 

There was one little river, and only one, within 
his knowledge and the reach of his short legs. 
It was a tiny, lively rivulet that came out of the 
woods about half a mile away from the hotel, 
and ran down eater-cornered through a sloping 
meadow, crossing the road under a flat bridge 

39 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

of boards, just beyond the root-beer shop at the 
lower end of the village. It seemed large 
enough to the boy, and he had long had liis eye 
upon it as a fitting theatre for the beginning of 
a real angler's life. Those rapids, those falls, 
those deep, whirling pools with beautiful foam 
on them like soft, white custard, were they not 
such places as the trout loved to hide in ? 

You can see the long hotel piazza, with the 
gossipy groups of wooden chairs standing va- 
cant in the early afternoon ; for the grown-up 
people are dallying with the idtimate nuts and 
raisins of their mid-day dinner. A villainous 
clatter of innumerable little vegetable-dishes 
comes from the open windows of the pantry as 
the boy steals past the kitchen end of the house, 
with Horace's lightest bamboo pole over his 
shoulder, and a little brother in skirts and short 
white stockings tagging along behind him. 

When they come to the five-rail fence where 
the brook runs out of the field, the question is. 
Over or under? The lowlier method seems 
safer for the little brother, as well as less con- 
spicuous for persons who desire to avoid publicity 
until their enterprise has achieved success. So 
they crawl beneath a bend in the lowest rail, — 
only tearing one tiny three-cornered hole in a 
jacket, and making some juicy green stains on 
the white stockings, — and emerge with sup- 

40 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

pressed excitement in the field of the cloth of 
buttercujis and daisies. 

What an afternoon — how endless and yet 
how swift ! What perilous efforts to leap across 
the foaming stream at its narrowest points ; what 
escapes from quagmires and possible quick- 
sands ; what stealthy creeping through the grass 
to the edge of a likely pool, and cautious drop- 
ping of the line into an unseen depth, and pa- 
tient waiting for a bite, until the restless little 
brother, prowling about below, discovers that 
the hook is not in the water at all, but lying on 
top of a dry stone, — thereby proving that pa- 
tience is not the only virtue — or, at least, that 
it does a better business when it has a small vice 
of impatience in partnership with it ! 

How tired the adventurers grow as the day 
wears away ; and as yet they have taken nothing ! 
But their strength and courage return as if by 
magic when there comes a surprising twitch at 
the line in a shallow, unpromising rapid, and 
with a jerk of the pole a small, wiggling fish is 
whirled through the air and landed thirty feet 
back in the meadow. 

" For pity's sake, don't lose him ! There he 
is among the roots of the blue flag." 

" I 've got him ! How cold he is — how slip- 
pery — how pretty ! Just like a piece of rain- 
bow!" 

41 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

" Do you see the red spots ? Did you notice 
how gamy he was, little brother ; how he played ? 
It is a trout, for sure ; a real trout, almost as 
long as your hand." 

So the two lads tramp along up the stream, 
chattering as if there were no rubric of silence 
in the angler's code. Presently another simple- 
minded troutling falls a victim to their unpre- 
meditated art ; and they begin already, being 
human, to wish for something larger. In the 
very last pool that they dare attempt — a dark 
hole under a steep bank, where the brook issues 
from the woods — the boy drags out the hoped- 
for prize, a splendid trout, longer than a new 
lead-pencil. But he feels sure that there must 
be another, even larger, in the same place. He 
swings his line out carefully over the water, and 
just as he is about to drop it in, the little bro- 
ther, perched on the sloping brink, slips on the 
smooth pine-needles, and goes sliddering down 
into the pool up to his waist. How he weeps 
with dismay, and how funnily his dress sticks to 
him as he crawls out ! But his grief is soon 
assuaged by the privilege of carrying the trout 
strung on an alder twig; and it is a happy, 
muddy, proud pair of urchins that climb over 
the fence out of the field of triumph at the close 
of the day. 

What does the father say, as he meets them in 

42 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

the road ? Is he frowning or smiling under that 
big brown beard ? You cannot be quite sure. 
But one thing is clear : he is as much elated 
over the capture of the real trout as any one. 
He is ready to deal mildly with a little irregu- 
larity for the sake of encouraging pluck and 
perseverance. Before the three comrades have 
reached \\iq hotel, the boy has promised faithfully 
never to take his little brother off again without 
asking leave ; and the father has promised that 
the boy shall have a real jointed fishing-rod of 
his own, so that he will not need to borrow old 
Horace's pole any more. 

At breakfast the next morning the family are 
to have a private dish ; not an every-day affair 
of vulgar, bony fish that nurses can catch, but 
trout — three of them ! But the boy looks up 
from the table and sees the adored of his soul, 

Annie V , sitting at the other end of the 

room, and faring on the common food of mortals. 
Shall she eat the ordinary breakfast while he 
feasts on dainties? Do not other sportsmen 
send their spoils to the ladies whom they admire ? 
The waiter must bring a hot plate, and take this 

largest trout to Miss V (Miss Annie, not 

her sister — make no mistake about it). 

The face of Augustus is as solemn as an 
ebony idol while he plays his part of Cupid's 
messenger. The fair Annie affects surprise; 

43 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

she accepts the offering rather indifferently ; 
her curls drop down over her cheeks to cover 
some small confusion. But for an instant the 
corner of her eye catches the boy's sidelong 
glance, and she nods perceptibly, whereuj)on his 
mother very inconsiderately calls attention to the 
fact that yesterday's escapade has sun-burned 
his face dreadfully. 

Beautiful Annie V ^ who, among all the 

unripened nymphs that j)layed at hide-and-seek 
among the maples on the hotel lawn, or waded 
with white feet along the yellow beach beyond 
the point of pines, flying with merry shrieks 
into the woods when a boat-load of boys appeared 
suddenly around the corner, or danced the lan- 
cers in the big, bare parlours before the grown- 
up ball began — who in all that joyous, innocent 
bevy could be compared with you for charm or 
daring ? How your dark eyes sparkled, and how 
the long brown ringlets tossed around your small 
head, when you stood up that evening, slim and 
straight, and taller by half a head than your 
companions, in the lamp-lit room where the chil- 
dren were playing forfeits, and said, " There is 
not one boy here that da^^es to kiss me ! " Then 
you ran out on the dark porch, where the honey- 
suckle vines grew up the tall, inane Corinthian 
pillars. 

Did you blame the boy for following ? And 

44 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

were you very angry, indeed, about what hap- 
pened, — until you broke out laughing at his 
cravat, which had slipped around behind his ear ? 
That was the first time he ever noticed how 
much sweeter the honeysuckle smells at night 
than in the day. It was his entrance examina- 
tion in the school of nature — human and other- 
wise. He felt that there was a whole continent 
of newly discovered poetry within him, and wor- 
shiped his Columbus disguised in curls. Your 
boy is your true idealist, after all, although (or 
perhaps because) he is still uncivilized. 

n. 

The arrival of the rod, in four joints, with an 
extra tip, a brass reel, and the other luxuries for 
which a true angler would willingly exchange the 
necessaries of life, marked a new epoch in the 
boy's career. At the uplifting of that wand, as 
if it had been in the hand of another Moses, 
the waters of infancy rolled back, and the way 
was opened into the promised land, whither the 
tyrant nurses, with all their proud array of 
baby-chariots, could not follow. The way was 
open, but not by any means dry. One of the 
first events in the dispensation of the rod was 
the purchase of a pair of high rubber boots. 
Inserted in this armour of modern infantry, 
and transfigured with delight, the boy clumped 

45 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

through all the little rivers within a circuit of 
ten miles from Caldwell, and began to learn by 
parental example the yet unmastered art of com- 
plete angling. 

But because some of the streams were deep 
and strong, and his legs were short and slender, 
and his ambition was even taller than his boots, 
the father would sometimes take him up picka- 
back, and wade along carefully through the peri- 
lous places — which are often, in this world, the 
very places one longs to fish in. So, in your re- 
membrance, you can see the little rubber boots 
sticking out under the father's arms, and the 
rod projecting over his head, and the bait dang- 
ling down unsteadily into the deep holes, and the 
delighted boy hooking and playing and basket- 
ing his trout high in the air. How many of our 
best catches in life are made from some one 
else's shoulders ! 

From this summer the whole earth became to 
the boy, as Tennyson describes the lotus coun- 
try, " a land of streams." In school-days and 
in town he acknowledged the sway of those mys- 
terious and irresistible forces which produce tops 
at one season, and marbles at another, and kites 
at another, and bind all boyish hearts to play 
mumble-the-peg at the due time more certainly 
than the stars are bound to their orbits. But 
when vacation came, with its annual exodus from 

46 



V 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

the city, there was only one sign in the zodiac, 
and that was Pisces. 

No country seemed to him tolerable without 
trout, and no landscape beautiful unless enliv- 
ened by a young river. Among what delectable 
mountains did those watery guides lead his va- 
grant steps, and with what curious, mixed, and 
sometimes profitable company did they make 
him familiar ! 

There was one exquisite stream among the 
Alleghanies, called Lycoming Creek, beside 
which the family spent a smnmer in a decadent 
inn, kept by a tremulous landlord who was 
always sitting on the steps of the porch, and 
whose most memorable remark was that he had 
" a misery in his stomach." This form of 
speech amused the boy, but he did not in the 
least comprehend it. It was the description of 
an unimaginable experience in a region which 
was as yet known to him only as the seat of 
pleasure. He did not understand how any one 
could be miserable when he could catch trout 
from his own dooryard. 

The big creek, with its sharp turns from side 
to side of the valley, its hemlock-shaded falls 
in the gorge, and its long, still reaches in the 
" sugar-bottom," where the maple- trees grew as 
if in an orchard, and the superfluity of grass- 
hoppers made the trout fat and dainty, was too 

47 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

wide to fit the boy. But nature keeps all sizes 
in lier stock, and a smaller stream, called Rocky 
Run, came tumbling down opposite the inn, as 
if made to order for juvenile use. 

How well you can follow it, through the old 
pasture overgrown with alders, and up past the 
broken-down mill-dam and the crumbling sluice, 
into the mountain-cleft from which it leaps 
laughing ! The water, except just after a rain- 
storm, is as transparent as glass — old-fashioned 
window-glass, I mean, in small panes, with just 
a tinge of green in it, like the air in a grove of 
young birches. Twelve feet down in the nar- 
row chasm below the falls, where the water is 
full of tiny bubbles, like Apollinaris, you can 
see the trout poised, with their heads up-stream, 
motionless, but quivering a little, as if they were 
strung on wires. 

The bed of the stream has been scooped out 
of the solid rock. Here and there banks of 
sand have been deposited, and accumulations of 
loose stone disguise the real nature of the chan- 
nel. Great boulders have been rolled down the 
alleyway and left where they chanced to stick ; 
the stream must get around them or under them 
as best it can. But there are other places where 
everything has been swept clean; nothing re- 
mains but the primitive strata, and the flowing 
water merrily tickles the bare ribs of mother 

48 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

earth. Whirling stones, in the spring floods, 
have cut well-holes in the rock, as round and 
even as if they had been made with a drill, and 
sometimes you can see the very stone that sunk 
the well lying at the bottom. There are long, 
straight, sloping troughs through which the wa- 
ter runs like a mill-race There are huge basins 
into which the water rumbles over a ledge, as 
if some one were pouring it very steadily out of 
a pitcher, and from which it glides away with- 
out a ripple, flowing over a smooth pavement of 
rock which shelves down from the shallow foot 
to the deep head of the pool. 

The boy wonders how far he dare wade out 
along that slippery floor. The water is within 
an inch of his boot-tops now. But the slope 
seems very even, and just beyond his reach a 
good fish is rising. Only one step more, and 
then, like the wicked man in the psalm, his feet 
begin to slide. Slowly, and standing bolt up- 
right, with the rod held high above his head, as 
if it must on no account get wet, he glides for- 
ward up to his neck in the ice-cold bath, gasp- 
ing with amazement. There have been other 
and more serious situations in life into which, 
unless I am mistaken, you have made an equally 
unwilling and embarrassed entrance, and in 
which you have been surprised to find yourself 
not only up to your neck, but over, — and you 

49 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

are a lucky man if you have Lad the presence of 
mind to stand still for a moment, before wading 
out, and make sure at least of the fish that 
tempted you into your predicament. 

But Rocky Run, they say, exists no longer. 
It has been blasted by miners out of all resem- 
blance to itself, and bewitched into a dingy 
water-power to turn wheels for the ugly giant, 
Trade. It is only in the valley of remembrance 
that its current still flows like liquid air ; and 
only in that country that you can still see the 
famous men who came and went along the banks 
of the Lycoming when the boy was there. 

There was Collins, who was a wondrous adept 
at " daping, dapping, or dibbling " with a grass- 
hopper, and who once brought in a string of 
trout which he laid out head to tail on the grass 
before the house in a line of beauty forty-seven 
feet long. A mighty bass voice had this Col- 
lins also, and could sing, " Larboard Watch, 
Ahoy ! " " Down in a Coal-Mine," and other 
profound ditties in a way to make all the glasses 
on the table jingle ; but withal, as you now sus- 
pect, rather a fishy character, and undeserving 
of the unqualified respect which the boy had for 
him. And there was Dr. Romsen, lean, satiri- 
cal, kindly, a skilful though reluctant physician, 
who regarded it as a personal injury if any one 
in the party fell sick in summer time ; and a 

60 




o 
U 

2 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

passionately unsuccessful hunter, who would sit 
all night in the crotch of a tree beside an alleged 
deer-lick, and come home perfectly satisfied if 
he had heard a hedgehog grunt. It was he who 
called attention to the discrepancy between the 
boy's appetite and his size by saying loudly at a 
picnic, " I woidd n't grudge you what you eat, 
my boy, if I could only see that it did you any 
good," — which remark was not forgiven until 
the doctor redeemed his reputation by pronoun- 
cing a serious medical opinion, before a council 
of mothers, to the effect that it did not really hurt 
a boy to get his feet wet. That was worthy of 
Galen in his most inspired moment. And there 
were the hearty, genial Paul Merit, whose mere 
company was an education in good manners, 
and who could eat eight hard-boiled eggs for 
supper without ruffling his equanimity ; and the 
tall, thin, grinning major, whom an angry Irish- 
woman once described as " like a comb, all back 
and teeth ; " and many more comrades of the 
boy's father, all of whom he admired, (and fol- 
lowed when they would let him,) but none so 
much as the father himself, because he was the 
wisest, kindest, and merriest of all that merry 
crew, now dispersed to the uttermost parts of the 
earth and beyond. 

Other streams played a part in the education 
of that happy boy : the KaaterskiU, where there 

51 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

had been notliing but the ghosts of trout for 
the last thirty years, but where the absence 
of fish was almost forgotten in the joy of a 
first introduction to Dickens, one very showery 
day, when dear old Ned Mason built a smoky 
fire in a cave below Haines's Falls, and, pull- 
ing 27ie Old Curiosity Shop out of his pocket, 
read aloud about Little Nell until the tears ran 
down the cheeks of reader and listener — the 
smoke was so thick, you know : and the Never- 
sink, which flows through John Burroughs's 
country, and past one house in particular, 
perched on a high bluff, where a very dreadful 
old woman comes out and throws stones at 
" city fellers fishin' through her land " (as if 
any one wanted to touch her land ! It was the 
water that ran over it, you see, that carried the 
fish with it, and they were not hers at all) : and 
the stream at Healing Springs, in the Virginia 
mountains, where the medicinal waters flow 
down into a lovely wild brook without injuring 
the health of the trout in the least, and where 
the only drawback to the angler's happiness is 
the abundance of rattlesnakes — but a boy 
does not mind such things as that ; he feels as if 
he were immortal. Over all these streams mem- 
ory skips lightly, and strikes a trail through the 
woods to the Adirondacks, where the boy made 
his first acquaintance with navigable rivers, — 

52 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

that is to say, rivers which are traversed by 
canoes and hunting-skiffs, but not yet defiled by 
steamboats, — and slept, or rather lay awake, 
for the first time on a bed of balsam-boughs in 
a tent. 

III. 

The promotion from all-day picnics to a two 
weeks' camping-trip is like going from school to 
college. By this time a natural process of evo- 
lution has raised the first stiff rod to something 
lighter and more flexible, — a fly-rod, so to 
speak, but not a bigoted one, — just a service- 
able, unprejudiced article, not above using any 
kind of bait that may be necessary to catch the 
fish. The father has received the new title of 
" governor," indicating not less, but more au- 
thority, and has called in new instructors to 
carry on the boy's education : real Adirondack 
guides — old Sam Dmming and one-eyed Enos, 
the last and laziest of the Saranac Indians. 
Better men will be discovered for later trips, 
but none more amusing, and none whose wood- 
craft seems more wonderful than that of this 
queerly matched team, as they make the first 
camp in a pelting rain-storm on the shore of Big 
Clear Pond. The pitching of the tents is a lesson 
in architecture, the building of the camp-fire 
a victory over damp nature, and the supper of 

53 



A LEAF OF SPEARMINT 

potatoes and bacon and fried trout a veritable 
triumpb of culinary art. 

At midnight the rain is pattering persistently 
on the canvas ; the front flaps are closed and tied 
together ; the lingering fire shines through them, 
and sends vague shadows wavering up and down : 
the governor is rolled up in his blankets, sound 
asleep. It is a very long night for the boy. 

What is that rustling noise outside the tent? 
Probably some small creature, a squirrel or a 
rabbit. Rabbit stew would be good for break- 
fast. But it sounds louder now, almost loud 
enough to be a fox, — there are no wolves left 
in the Adirondacks, or at least only a very few. 
That is certainly quite a heavy footstep prowl- 
ing around the provision-box. Could it be a 
panther, — they step very softly for their size, — 
or a bear perhaps ? Sam Dunning told about 
catching one in a trap just below here. (Ah, 
my boy, you will soon learn that there is no spot 
in all the forests created by a bountiful Provi- 
dence so poor as to be without its bear story.) 
Where was the rifle put ? There it is, at the 
foot of the tent-pole. Wonder if it is loaded ? 

" WaugJi'lio ! WaugJi-ho-o-o-o ! " 

The boy springs from his blankets like a cat, 
and peeps out between the tent-flaps. There 
sits Enos, in the shelter of a leaning tree by 
the fire, with his head thrown back and a bottle 

54 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

poised at his moiith. His lonely eye is cocked 
up at a great horned owl on the branch above 
him. Again the sudden voice breaks out: 

" Whoo ! whoo ! wJioo coohsfor you all? " 

Enos puts the bottle down, with a grunt, and 
creeps off to his tent. 

" De debbil in dat owl," he mutters. " How 
he know I cook for dis camp ? How he know 
'bout dat bottle? Ugh!" 

There are hundreds of pictures that flash 
into light as the boy goes on his course, year 
after year, through the woods. There is the 
luxurious camp on Tupper's Lake, with its log 
cabins in the spruce-grove, and its regiment of 
hungry men who ate almost a deer a day ; and 
there is the little bark shelter on the side of 
Mount Marcy, where the governor and the 
boy, with baskets full of trout from the Opa- 
lescent River, are spending the night, with 
nothing but a fire to keep them warm. There 
is the North Bay at Moosehead, with Joe La 
Croix (one more Frenchman who thinks he 
looks like Napoleon) posing on the rocks beside 
his canoe, and only reconciled by his vanity to 
the wasteful pastime of taking photographs while 
the big fish are rising gloriously out at the end of 
the point. There is the small spring-hole beside 
the Saranac River, where Pliny Robbins and the 
boy caught twenty-three noble trout, weighing 

65 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

from one to three pounds apiece, in tlie middle 
of a hot August afternoon, and hid themselves 
in the bushes whenever they heard a party com- 
ing down the river, because they did not care 
to attract company; and there are the Middle 
Falls, where the governor stood on a long 
spruce log, taking two-pound fish with the fly, 
and stepping out at every cast a little nearer 
to the end of the log, until it slowly tipped with 
him, and he settled down into the river. 

Among such scenes as these the boy pur- 
sued his education, learning many things that 
are not taught in colleges; learning to take 
the weather as it comes, wet or dry, and for- 
tune as it falls, good or bad; learning that 
a meal which is scanty fare for one becomes 
a banquet for two — provided the other is the 
right person ; learning that there is some skill 
\ in everything, even in digging bait, and that 
jwhat is called luck consists chiefly in having 
I your tackle in good order ; learning that a 
man can be just as happy in a log shanty as in 
a brownstone mansion, and that the very best 
pleasures are those that do not leave a bad 
j taste in the mouth. And in all this the gover- 
nor was his best teacher and his closest comrade. 
Dear governor, you have gone out of the 
wilderness now, and your steps will be no 
more beside these remembered little rivers — 

66 




The Governor 



A LEAF OF SPEABMINT 

110 more, forever and forever. You will not 
come in sight around any bend of this clear 
Swiftwater stream where you made your last 
cast; your cheery voice will never again ring 
out through the deepening twilight where you 
are lingering for your disciple to catch up 
with you; lie will never again hear you call: 
"Hallo, my boy! What luck? Time to go 
home ! " But there is a river in the country 
where you have gone, is there not? — a river 
with trees growing all along it — evergreen 
trees ; and somewhere by those shady banks, 
within sound of clear running waters, I think 
you will be dreaming and waiting for your boy, 
if he follows tl;ie trail that you have shown him 
even to the end. 

67 



AMPERSAND 



' It is not the walking^ merely, it is keepins^ yourself in tune /or a walk, in 
the spiritual and bodily co7tdition in which yo2{ can fi7id entertainment 
and exhilaration ifi so simple and luitural a pastime. Vou are elif^ible 
to a7iy goodfortufie when you are ifi a conditioti to enjoy a walk. IVhefi 
tJie air and water taste sweet to yon, hcnv much else will taste srveeti 
WJien the exercise of your limbs affords you pleasure, aftd the play of 
your sefises ?ipon the various objects and shows of Nature quicke^is and 
stimulates your spirit, your relation to the world and to yourself is wliat 
it should be, — sifnple, and direct, and wholesome,'''' — John Bur- 
roughs: Pepacton. 




NC^^- 



AMPERSAND 

The right to the name of Ampersand, like the 
territory of Gaul in those Commentaries which 
Julius Caesar wrote for the punishment of school- 
boys, is divided into three parts. It belongs to 
a mountain, and a lake, and a little river. 

The mountain stands in the heart of the Adi- 
rondack country, just near enough to the thor- 
oughfare of travel for thousands of people to 
see it every year, and just far enough from the 
beaten track to be unvisited except by a very 
few of the wise ones, who love to turn aside. 
Behind the moimtain is the lake, which no lazy 
man has ever seen. Out of the lake flows the 
stream, winding down a long, untrodden forest 
valley, to join the Stony Creek waters and 
empty into the Raquette River. 

Which of the three Ampersands has the prior 
claim to the name, I cannot tell. Philosophi- 
cally speaking, the mountain ought to be re- 
garded as the head of the family, because it 
was undoubtedly there before the others. And 
the lake was probably the next on the ground, 

61 



AMPERSAND 

because the stream is its child. But man is not 
strictly just in his nomenclature ; and I con- 
jecture that the little river, the last-born of the 
three, was the first to be christened Amper- 
sand, and then gave its name to its parent and 
grand-parent. It is such a crooked stream, so 
bent and curved and twisted upon itself, so 
fond of turning around unexpected corners and 
sweeping away in great circles from its direct 
course, that its first explorers christened it after 
the eccentric supernumerary of the alphabet 
which appears in the old spelling-books as cfe — 
and per se, and. 

But in spite of this apparent subordination to 
the stream in the matter of a name, the moun- 
tain clearly asserts its natural authority. It 
stands up boldly ; and not only its own lake, but 
at least three others, the Lower Saranac, Eound 
Lake, and Lonesome Pond, lie at its foot and 
acknowledge its lordship. When the cloud is 
on its brow, they are dark. When the sunlight 
strikes it, they smile. Wherever you may go over 
the waters of these lakes you shall see Mount 
Ampersand looking down at you, and saying 
quietly, " This is my domain." 

I never look at a mountain which asserts itself 
in this fashion without desiring to stand on the 
top of it. If one can reach the summit, one be- 
comes a sharer in the dominion. The difficulties 

62 



AMPEBSAND 

in the way only add to tlie zest of the victory. 
Every mountain is, rightly considered, an in- 
vitation to climb. And as I was resting for a 
month one smnmer at Bartlett's, Ampersand 
challenged me daily. 

Did you know Bartlett's in its palmy time ? 
It was the homeliest, quaintest, coziest place in 
the Adirondacks. Away back in the ante-helluni 
days Virgil Bartlett had come into the woods, and 
built his house on the bank of the Saranac River, 
between the Upper Saranac and Round Lake. 
It was then the only dwelling within a circle of 
many miles. The deer and bear were in the 
majority. At night one could sometimes hear 
the scream of the panther or the howling of 
wolves. But soon the wilderness began to wear 
the traces of a conventional smile. The desert 
blossomed a little — if not as the rose, at least 
as the gilly-flower. Fields were cleared, gar- 
dens planted ; half a dozen log cabins were scat- 
tered along the river ; and the old house, hav- 
ing gro'^^Ti slowly and somewhat irregularly for 
twenty years, came out, just before the time of 
which I write, in a modest coat of paint and a 
broad-brimmed piazza. But Virgil himself, the 
creator of the oasis — well known of hunters 
and fishermen, dreaded of lazy guides and quar- 
relsome Imnbermen, — " Virge," the irascible, 
kind-hearted, indefatigable, was there no longer* 

63 



AMPERSAND 

He had made his last clearing, and fought his 
last fight ; done his last favour to a friend, and 
thrown his last adversary out of the tavern door. 
His last log had gone down the river. His 
camp-fire had burned out. Peace to his ashes. 
His wife, who had often played the part of Abi- 
gail towards travellers who had unconsciously 
incurred the old man's mistrust, now reigned in 
his stead ; and there was great abundance of 
maple-syrup on every man's flapjack. 

The charm of Bartlett's for the angler was 
the stretch of rapid water in front of the house. 
The Saranac River, breaking from its first rest- 
ing-place in the Upper Lake, plunged down 
through a great bed of rocks, making a chain 
of short falls and pools and rapids, about half 
a mile in length. Here, in the spring and early 
summer, the speckled trout — brightest and 
daintest of all fish that swim — used to be found 
in great numbers. As the season advanced, they 
moved away into the deep water of the lakes. 
But there were always a few stragglers left, and 
I have taken them in the rapids at the very end 
of August. What could be more delightful 
than to spend an hour or two, in the early morn- 
ing or evening of a hot day, in wading this rush- 
ing stream, and casting the fly on its clear 
waters ? The wind blows softly down the nar- 
row valley, and the trees nod from the rocks 

64 




Trouting 



AMPERSAND 

above you. The noise of the falls makes con- 
stant music in your ears. The river hurries past 
you, and yet it is never gone. 

The same foam-flakes seem to be always glid- 
ing downward, the same spray dashing over the 
stones, the same eddy coiling at the edge of the 
pool. Send your fly in under those cedar 
branches, where the water swirls around by that 
old log. Now draw it up toward the foam. There 
is a sudden gleam of dull gold in the white water. 
You strike too soon. Your line comes back to 
you. In a current like this, a fish wall almost 
always hook himself. Try it again. This time 
he takes the fly fairly, and you have him. It is 
a good fish, and he makes the slender rod bend 
to the strain. He sulks for a moment as if un- 
certain what to do, and then with a rush darts 
into the swiftest part of the current. You can 
never stop him there. Let him go. Keep just 
enough pressure on him to hold the hook firm, 
and follow his troutship down the stream as if 
he were a salmon. He slides over a little fall, 
gleaming through the foam, and swings around 
in the next pool. Here you can manage him 
more easily; and after a few minutes' brilliant 
play, a few mad dashes for the current, he 
comes to the net, and your skilful guide lands 
him with a quick, steady sweep of the arm. 
The scales credit him with an even pound, and 

65 



AMPEBSAND 

a better fish than this you will hardly take here 
in midsummer. 

" On my word, master," says the appreciative 
Venator, in Walton's Angler, " this is a gallant 
trout ; what shall we do with him ? " And hon- 
est Piscator, replies : " Marry ! e'en eat him to 
supper ; we '11 go to my hostess from whence we 
came ; she told me, as I was going out of door, 
that my brother Peter, (and who is this but 
Romeyn of Keeseville?) a good angler and a 
cheerful companion, had sent word he would 
lodge there to-night, and bring a friend with 
him. My hostess has two beds, and I know you 
and I have the best ; we '11 rejoice with my 
brother Peter and his friend, tell tales, or sing 
ballads, or make a catch, or find some harmless 
sport to content us, and pass away a little time 
without offence to God or man." 

Ampersand waited immovable while I passed 
many days in such innocent and heathful pleas- 
ures as these, until the right day came for the 
ascent. Cool, clean, and bright, the crystal 
morning promised a glorious noon, and the 
mountain almost seemed to beckon us to come 
up higher. The photographic camera and a 
trustworthy lunch were stowed away in the pack- 
basket. The backboard was adjusted at a com- 
fortable angle in the stern seat of our little 
boat. The guide held the little craft steady 

66 



AMPERSAND 

while I stepped into my place ; then he pushed 
out into the stream, and we went swiftly down 
toward Kound Lake. 

A Saranac boat is one of the finest things 
that the skill of man has ever produced under 
the inspiration of the wilderness. It is a frail 
shell, so light that a guide can carry it on his 
shoulders with ease, but so dexterously fashioned 
that it rides the heaviest waves like a duck, and 
slips through the water as if by magic. You 
can travel in it along the shallowest rivers and 
across the broadest lakes, and make forty or 
fifty miles a day, if you have a good guide. 

Everything depends, in the Adirondacks, as 
in so many other regions of life, upon your guide. 
If he is selfish, or surly, or stupid, you will have 
a bad time. But if he is an Adirondacker of 
the best old-fashioned type, — now unhappily 
growing more rare from year to year, — you 
will find him an inimitable companion, honest, 
faithful, skilful and cheerful. He is as inde- 
pendent as a prince, and the gilded youths and 
finicking fine ladies who attempt to patronize 
him are apt to make but a sorry show before 
his solid and undisguised contempt. But deal 
with him man to man, and he will give you a 
friendly, loyal service which money cannot buy, 
and teach you secrets of woodcraft and lessons 
in plain, self-reliant manhood more valuable 

67 



AMPEBSAND 

than all the learning of the schools. Such a 
guide was mine, rejoicing in the Scriptural name 
of Hosea, but commonly called, in brevity and 
friendliness, " Hose." 

As we entered Round Lake on this fair morn- 
ing, its surface was as smooth and shining as a 
mirror. It was too early yet for the tide of 
travel which sends a score of boats up and down 
this thoroughfare every day ; and from shore to 
shore the water was unruffled, except by a flock 
of sheldrakes which had been feeding near Ply- 
mouth Rock, and now went skittering off into 
Weller Bay with a motion between flying and 
swimming, leaving a long wake of foam behind 
them. 

At such a time as this you can see the real 
colour of these Adirondack lakes. It is not blue, 
as romantic writers so often describe it, nor 
green, like some of those wonderful Swiss lakes, 
although of course it reflects the colour of the 
trees along the shore ; and when the wind stirs 
it, it gives back the hue of the sky, blue when it 
is clear, gray when the clouds are gathering, 
and sometimes as black as ink under the shadow 
of storm. But when it is still, the water itself 
is like that river which one of the poets has de- 
scribed as 

" Flowing with a smooth brown current." 

And in this sheet of burnished bronze the moun- 

68 







< 

< 



AMPEBSAND 

tains and islands were reflected perfectly, and 
the sun shone back from it, not in broken 
gleams or a wide lane of light, but like a single 
ball of fire, moving before us as we moved. 

But stop ! What is that dark speck on the 
water, away down toward Turtle Point ? It has 
just the shape and size of a deer's head. It seems 
to move steadily out into the lake. There is a 
little ripple, like a wake, behind it. Hose turns 
to look at it, and then sends the boat darting in 
that direction with long, swift strokes. It is a 
moment of pleasant excitement, and we begin to 
conjecture whether the deer is a buck or a doe, 
and whose hounds have driven it in. But when 
Hose turns to look again, he slackens his stroke, 
and says : " I guess we needn't to hurry ; he 
won't get away. It 's astonishin' what a lot of 
fun a man can get in the course of a natural life 
a-chasin' chumps of wood." 

We landed on a sand beach at the mouth of 
a little stream, where a blazed tree marked the 
beginning of the Ampersand trail. This line 
through the forest was made years ago by that 
ardent sportsman and lover of the Adirondacks, 
Dr. W. W. Ely, of Kochester. Since that time 
it has been shortened and improved a little by 
other travellers, and also not a little blocked 
and confused by the lumbermen and the course 
of Nature. For when the lumbermen go into 

69 



AMPERSAND 

the woods, they cut roads in every direction, 
leading nowhither, and the unwary wanderer 
is thereby led aside from the right way, and en- 
tangled in the undergrowth. And as for Nature, 
she is entirely opposed to continuance of paths 
through her forest. She covers them with fallen 
leaves, and hides them with thick bushes. She 
drops great trees across them, and blots them 
out with windfalls. But the blazed line — a 
succession of broad axe-marks on the trunks of 
the trees, just high enough to catch the eye on a 
level — cannot be so easily obliterated, and this, 
after all, is the safest guide through the woods. 

Our trail led us at first through a natural 
meadow, overgrown with waist-high grass, and 
very spongy to the tread. Hornet-haunted also 
was this meadow, and therefore no place for idle 
dalliance or unwary digression, for the bite of 
the hornet is one of the saddest and most humili- 
ating surprises of this mortal life. 

Then through a tangle of old wood-roads my 
guide led me safely, and we struck up on the 
long ridges which slope gently from the lake to 
the base of the mountain. Here walking was 
comparatively easy, for in the hard-wood timber 
there is little underbrush. The massive trunks 
seemed like pillars set to uphold the level roof 
of green. Great yellow birches, shaggy with 
age, stretched their knotted arms high above 

70 



AMPEBSAND 

US ; sugar-maples stood up straight and proud 
under their leafy crowns ; and smooth beeches 
— the most polished and park-like of all the 
forest trees — offered opportunities for the carv- 
ing of lovers' names in a place where few lovers 
ever come. 

The woods were quiet. It seemed as if all 
living creatures had deserted them. Indeed, if 
you have spent much time in our Northern 
forests, you must have often wondered at the 
sparseness of life, and felt a sense of pity for the 
apparent loneliness of the squirrel that chatters 
at you as you pass, or the little bird that hops 
noiselessly about in the thickets. The mid- 
summer noontide is an especially silent time. 
The deer are asleep in some wild meadow. The 
partridge has gathered her brood for their mid- 
day nap. The squirrels are perhaps counting 
over their store of nuts in a hollow tree, and 
the hermit-thrush spares his voice until evening. 
The woods are close — not cool and fragrant as 
the foolish romances describe them — but warm 
and still ; for the breeze which sweeps across the 
hilltop and ruffles the lake does not penetrate 
into these shady recesses, and therefore all the 
inhabitants take the noontide as their hour of 
rest. Only the big woodpecker — he of the 
scarlet head and mighty bill — is indefatigable, 
and somewhere unseen is " tapping the hollow 

71 



AMPERSAND 

beech-tree," while a wakeful little bird, — I 
guess it is the black-throated green warbler, — 
prolongs his dreamy, listless ditty, — ^te-de-terit- 
sea, — He-de-us-wait. 

After about an hour of easy walking, our trail 
began to ascend more sharply. We passed over 
the shoulder of a ridge and around the edge of 
a fire-slash, and then we had the mountain fairly 
before us. Not that we could see anything of 
it, for the woods still shut us in, but the path 
became very steep, and we knew that it was a 
straight climb; not up and down and round 
about did this most uncompromising trail pro- 
ceed, but right up, in a direct line for the sum- 
mit. 

Now this side of Ampersand is steeper than 
any Gothic roof I have ever seen, and withal 
very much encumbered with rocks and ledges 
and fallen trees. There were places where we 
had to haul ourselves up by roots and branches, 
and places where we had to go down on our 
hands and knees to crawl under logs. It was 
breathless work, but not at all dangerous or 
difficult. Every step forward was also a step 
upward; and as we stopped to rest for a mo- 
ment, we could see already glimpses of the lake 
below us. But at these I did not much care to 
look, for I think it is a pity to spoil the surprise 
of a grand view by taking little snatches of it 

72 



AMPERSAND 

beforehand. It is better to keep one's face set 
to the mountain, and then, coming out from the 
dark forest upon the very summit, feel the splen- 
dour of the outlook flash upon one like a revela- 
tion. 

The character of the woods through which we 
were now passing was entirely different from 
those of the lower levels. On these steep places 
the birch and maple will not grow, or at least 
they occur but sparsely. The higher slopes and 
sharp ridges of the mountains are always cov- 
ered with black timber. Spruce and hemlock 
and balsam strike their roots among the rocks, 
and find a hidden nourishment. They stand 
close together ; thickets of small trees spring 
up among the large ones ; from year to year the 
great trunks are falling one across another, and 
the undergrowth is thickening around them, 
until a spruce forest seems to be almost impass- 
able. The constant rain of needles and the 
crumbling of the fallen trees form a rich, brown 
mould, into which the foot sinks noiselessly. 
Wonderful beds of moss, many feet in thickness, 
and softer than feathers, cover the rocks and 
roots. There are shadows never broken by the 
sun, and dark, cool springs of icy water hidden 
away in the crevices. You feel a sense of anti- 
quity here which you can never feel among the 
maples and beeches. Longfellow was right 

73 



AMPEBSAND 

when lie filled his forest primeval with " mur- 
muring pines and hemlocks." 

The higher one climbs, the darker and gloom- 
ier and more rugged the vegetation becomes. 
The pine-trees soon cease to follow you ; the 
hemlocks disappear, and the balsams can go 
no farther. Only the hardy spruce keeps on 
bravely, rough and stunted, with branches 
matted together and pressed down flat by the 
weight of the winter's snow, until finally, some- 
where about the level of four thousand feet 
above the sea, even this bold climber gives out, 
and the weather-beaten rocks of the summit are 
clad only with mosses and Alpine plants. 

Thus it is with mountains, as perhaps with 
men, a mark of superior dignity to be naturally 
bald. 

Ampersand, falling short by a thousand feet 
of the needful height, cannot claim this dis- 
tinction. But what Nature has denied, human 
labour has supplied. Under the direction of the 
Adirondack Survey, some years ago, several acres 
of trees were cut from the summit ; and when we 
emerged, after the last sharp scramble, upon the 
very crest of the mountain, we were not shut in 
by a dense thicket, but stood upon a bare ridge 
of granite in the centre of a ragged clearing. 

I shut my eyes for a moment, drew a few 
long breaths of the glorious breeze, and then 

74 



AMPERSAND 

looked out upon a wonder and a delight beyond 
description. 

A soft, dazzling splendour filled the air. 
Snowy banks and drifts of cloud were floating 
slowly over a wide and wondrous land. Vast 
sweeps of forest, shining waters, mountains near 
and far, the deepest green and the palest blue, 
changing colours and glancing lights, and all so 
silent, so strange, so far away, that it seemed 
like the landscape of a dream. One almost 
feared to speak, lest it should vanish. 

Right below us the Lower Saranac and Lone- 
some Pond, Round Lake and the Weller Ponds, 
were spread out like a map. Every point and 
island was clearly marked. We could follow 
the course of the Saranac River in all its curves 
and windings, and see the white tents of the hay- 
makers on the wild meadows. Far away to the 
northeast stretched the level fields of Blooming- 
dale. But westward all was unbroken wilder- 
ness, a great sea of woods as far as the eye could 
reach. And how far it can reach from a height 
like this ! What a revelation of the power of 
sight ! That faint blue outline far in the north 
was Lyon Mountain, nearly thirty miles away 
as the crow flies. Those silver gleams a little 
nearer were the waters of St. Regis. The Upper 
Saranac was displayed in all its length and 
breadth, and beyond it the innumerable waters 

75 



AMPEBSAND 

of Fish Creek were tangled among the dark 
woods. The long ranges of the hills about the 
Jordan bounded the western horizon, and on 
the southwest Big Tupper Lake was sleeping at 
the base of Mount Morris. Looking past the 
peak of Stony Creek Mountain, which rose 
sharp and distinct in a line with Ampersand, 
we could trace the path of the Eaquette River 
from the distant waters of Long Lake down 
through its far-stretched valley, and catch here 
and there a silvery link of its current. 

But when we turned to the south and east, 
how wonderful and how different was the view ! 
Here was no widespread and smiling landscape 
with gleams of silver scattered through it, and 
soft blue haze resting upon its fading verge, but 
a wild land of mountains, stern, rugged, tumult- 
uous, rising one beyond another like the waves 
of a stormy ocean, — Ossa piled upon Pelion, — 
Mclntyre's sharp peak, and the ragged crest of 
the Gothics, and, above all, Marcy's dome-like 
head, raised just far enough above the others to 
assert his royal right as monarch of the Adiron- 
dacks. 

But grandest of all, as seen from this height, 
was Mount Seward, — a solemn giant of a moun- 
tain, standing apart from the others, and looking 
us full in the face. He was clothed from base 
to summit in a dark, unbroken robe of forest. 

76 



AMPEBSAXD 

Ou-kor-Iah, the Indians called him — the Great 
Eye ; and he seemed almost to frown upon us in 
defiance. At his feet, so straight below us that 
it seemed almost as if we could cast a stone into 
it, lay the wildest and most beautiful of all the 
Adirondack waters — Ampersand Pond. 

On its shore, some five-and-twenty years ago, 
the now almost forgotten Adirondack Club had 
their shanty — the successor of " the Philoso- 
phers' Camp " on Follensbee Pond. Agassiz, 
Appleton, Xorton, Emerson, Lowell, Hoar, Gray, 
John Holmes, and Stillman, were among the 
company who made their resting-place under the 
shadow of Mount Seward. They had bought 
a tract of forest land completely encircling the 
pond, cut a rough road to it through the woods, 
and built a comfortable log cabin, to which they 
purposed to return summer after summer. But 
the civil war broke out, with all its terrible 
excitement and confusion of hurrying hosts : the 
club existed but for two years, and the little 
house in the wilderness was abandoned. In 
1878, when I spent three weeks at Ampersand, 
the cabin was in ruins, and surrounded by an 
almost impenetrable growth of bushes. The 
only philosophers to be seen were a family of 
what the guides quaintly call '' quill pigs.'' The 
roof had fallen to the ground ; raspberry-bushes 
thrust themselves through the yawning crevices 

77 



AMPERSAND 

between the logs ; and in front of the sunken 
door-sill lay a rusty, broken iron stove, like a 
dismantled altar on which the fire had gone out 
forever. 

After we had feasted upon the view as long 
as we dared, counted the lakes and streams, and 
found that we could see without a glass more 
than thirty, and recalled the memories of " good 
times " which came to us from almost every point 
of the compass, we unpacked the camera, and 
proceeded to take some pictures. 

If you are a photographer, and have anything 
of the amateur's passion for your art, you will 
appreciate my pleasure and my anxiety. Never 
before, so far as I knew, had a camera been set 
up on Ampersand. I had but eight plates with 
me. The views were all very distant and all at 
a downward angle. The power of the light at 
this elevation was an unknown quantity. And 
the wind was sweeping vigorously across the 
open summit of the mountain. I put in my 
smallest stop, and prepared for short exposures. 

My instrument was a thing called a Touro- 
graph, which differs from most other cameras in 
having the plate-holder on top of the box. The 
plates are dropped into a groove below, and then 
moved into focus, after which the cap is removed 
and the exposure made. 

I set my instrument for Ampersand Pond, 

78 



AMPERSAND 

sighted the picture through the ground glass, 
and measured the focus. Then I waited for a 
quiet moment, dropped the plate, moved it care- 
fully forward to the proper mark, and went 
around to take off the cap. I found that I 
already had it in my hand, and the plate had 
heen^ exposed for ahout thirty seconds with a 
sliding focus ! 

I expostulated with myself. I said: "You 
are excited ; you are stupid ; you are unworthy 
of the name of photographer. Light - writer ! 
You ought to write with a whitewash - brush ! " 
The reproof was effectual, and from that moment 
aU went well. The plates dropped smoothly, 
the camera was steady, the exposure was correct. 
Six good pictures were made, to recall, so far 
as black and white could do it, the delights of 
that day. 

It has been my good luck to climb many of 
the peaks of the Adirondacks — Dix, the Dial, 
Hurricane, the Giant of the Valley, Marcy^ 
and Whiteface — but I do not think the out- 
look from any of them is so wonderful and 
lovely as that from little Ampersand; and I 
reckon among my most valuable chattels the 
plates of glass on which the sun has traced for 
me (who cannot draw) the outlines of that love- 
liest landscai3e. 

The downward journey was swift. We halted 

79 



AMPERSAND 

for an hour or two beside a trickling spring, a 
few rods below the summit, to eat our lunch. 
Then, jumping, running, and sometimes sliding, 
we made the descent, passed in safety by the 
dreaded lair of the hornet, and reached Bartlett's 
as the fragrance of the evening pancake was 
softly diffused through the twilight. Mark that 
day, memory, with a double star in your cata- 
logue ! 

80 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 



'• Scotland is the home of romance because it is the home of Scott ^ Burns, 
Black, Macdonald^ Stevenson, and Barrie — and of thojisands of men 
like that old HigJdander in kilts on the tow-path, who loves what they 
have written. I would wager he has a copy of Burns in his sporran, 
and has quoted him. Jialf a dozen times to the grim. Celt who is walking 
with him. Those old boys donH read for excitement or knowledge, but 
because they love their land and their people and tJieir religion — and 
their great writers simply express their ejnotions for them, in words 
they can Jtnderstand. Vou and I come over Itere, with thousands of 
our countrymen, to borrow their emotions,^'' — Robert Bridges : Over- 
heard in A ready. 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

My friend the triumpliant democrat, fiercest 
of radicals and kindest of men, expresses his 
scorn for monarchical institutions (and his in- 
vincible love for his native Scotland) by tenant- 
ing, summer after summer, a famous castle 
among the heathery Higlilands. There he pro- 
claims the most uncompromising Americanism 
in a speech that grows more broadly Scotch with 
every week of his emancipation from the in- 
fluence of the clipped, commercial accent of New 
York, and casts contempt on feudalism by play- 
ing the part of lord of the manor to such a per- 
fection of high-handed beneficence that the peo- 
ple of the glen are all become his clansmen, and 
his gentle lady would be the patron saint of the 
district — if the republican theology of Scotland 
could only admit saints among the elect. 

Every year he sends trophies of game to his 
friends across the sea — birds that are as tooth- 
some and wild-flavoured as if they had not been 
hatched under the tyranny of the game-laws. 
He has a pleasant trick of making them grate- 

83 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHEB 

ful to the imagination as well as to the palate 
by packing tliem in heather. I '11 warrant that 
Aaron's rod bore no bonnier blossoms than these 
stiff little bushes — and none more magical. 
For every time I take up a handful of them they 
transport me to the Highlands, and send me 
tramping once more, with knapsack and fishing- 
rod, over the braes and down the burns. 

I. 

BELL-HEATHER 

Some of my happiest meanderings in Scotland 
have been taken under the lead of a book. In- 
deed, for travel in a strange country there can 
be no better courier. Not a guide-book, I mean, 
but a real book, and, by preference, a novel. 

Fiction, like wine, tastes best in the place 
where it was grown. And the scenery of a 
foreign land (including architecture, which is 
artificial landscape) grows less dreamlike and 
unreal to our perception when we people it with 
familiar characters from our favourite novels. 
Even on a first journey we feel ourselves among 
old friends. Thus to read Romola in Florence, 
and Les Miserahles in Paris, and Lorna Doone 
on Exmoor, and The Heart of Midlothian in 
Edinburgh, and David Balfour in the Pass of 
Glencoe, and The Pirate in the Shetland Isles, 

84 




o 






H 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

is to get a new sense of the possibilities of life. 
All these things have I done with much inward 
contentment; and other things of like quality 
have I yet in store; as, for example, the con- 
junction of The Bonnie Brier-Bush with Drum- 
tochty, and The Little Minister with Thrums, 
and The Eaiders with Galloway. But I never 
expect to pass pleasanter days than those I spent 
with A Princess of Thule among the Hebrides. 
For then, to begin with, I was young ; which is 
an unearned increment of delight sure to be con- 
fiscated by the envious years and never regained. 
But even youth itself was not to be compared 
with the exquisite felicity of being deeply and 
desperately in love with Sheila, the clear-eyed 
heroine of that charming book. In this inno- 
cent passion my gray-haired comrades, Howard 
Crosby, the Chancellor of the University of 
New York, and my father, an ex-Moderator of 
the Presbyterian General Assembly, were ardent 
but generous rivals. 

Bountiful Heaven, source of all our blessings, 
how great is the joy and how fascinating the 
pursuit of such an ethereal affection! It en- 
larges the heart without embarrassing the con- 
science. It is a cup of pure gladness with no 
bitterness in its dregs. It spends the present 
moment with a free hand, and yet leaves no 
undesirable mortgage upon the future. King 

85 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

Arthur, the founder of the Round Table, ex- 
pressed a conviction, according to Tennyson, 
that the most imj)ortant element in a young 
knight's education is " the maiden passion for a 
maid." Surely the safest form in which this 
course may be taken is by falling in love with a 
girl in a book. It is the only affair of the kind 
into which a young fellow can enter without 
responsibility, and out of which he can always 
emerge, when necessary, without discredit. And 
as for the old fellow who still keeps up this edu- 
cation of the heart, and worships his heroine 
with the ardor of a John Ridd and the fidelity 
of a Henry Esmond, I maintain that he is ex- 
empt from all the penalties of declining years. 
The man who can love a girl in a book may be 
old, but never aged. 

So we sailed, lovers all three, among the 
Western Isles, and whatever ship it was that 
carried us, her figurehead was always the Prin- 
cess Sheila. Along the ruffled blue waters of 
the sounds and lochs that wind among the roots 
of unpronounceable mountains, and past the dark 
hills of Skye, and through the unnumbered 
flocks of craggy islets where the sea-birds nest, 
the spell of the sweet Highland maid drew us, 
and we were pilgrims to the Ultima Thule where 
she lived and reigned. 

The Lewis, with its tail-piece, the Harris, is 

86 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

quite a sizable island to be appended to such a 
country as Scotland. It is a number of miles 
long, and another number of miles wide, and 
it has a number of thousand inhabitants — I 
should say as many as three-quarters of an in- 
habitant to the square mile — and the conditions 
of agriculture and the fisheries are extremely in- 
teresting and quarrelsome. All these I duly 
studied at the time, and reported in a series of 
intolerably dull letters to the newspaper which 
supplied a financial basis for my sentimental 
journey. They are full of information, but I 
have been amused to note, after these many 
years, how wide they steer of the true motive 
and interest of the excursion. There is not even 
a hint of Sheila in any of them. Youth, after 
all, is but a shamefaced and secretive season ; 
like the fringed polygala, it hides its real blos- 
som underground. 

It was Sheila's dark-blue dress and sailor hat 
with the white feather that we looked for as we 
loafed through the streets of Stornoway, that 
quaint metropolis of the herring-trade, where 
strings of fish alternated with boxes of flowers in 
the windows, and handfuls of fish were spread 
upon the roofs to dry just as the sliced apples 
are exposed upon the kitchen-sheds of New Eng- 
land in September, and dark-haired women were 
carrying great creels of fish on their shoulders, 

87 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHpR 

and groups of sunburned men were smoking 
among the fishing-boats on the beach and talk- 
ing about fish, and sea-gulls were floating over 
the houses with their heads turning from side to 
&ide and their bright eyes peering everywhere 
for unconsidered trifles of fish, and the whole 
atmosphere of the place, physical, mental, and 
moral, was pervaded with fish. It was Sheila's 
soft, sing-song Highland speech that we heard 
through the long, luminous twilight in the 
pauses of that friendly chat on the balcony of 
the little inn where a good fortune brought us 
acquainted with Sam Bough, the mellow Edin- 
burgh painter. It was Sheila's low sweet brow, 
and long black eyelashes, and tender blue eyes, 
that we saw before us as we loitered over the 
open moorland, a far-rolling sea of brown bil- 
lows, reddened with patches of bell-heather, and 
brightened here and there with little lakes lying 
wide open to the sky. And were not these peat- 
cutters, with the big baskets on their backs, 
walking in silhouette along the ridges, the peo- 
ple that Sheila loved and tried to help; and 
were not these crofters' cottages with thatched 
roofs, like beehives, blending almost impercepti- 
bly with the landscape, the dwellings into which 
she planned to introduce the luxury of windows ; 
and were not these Standing Stones of Caller- 
nish, huge tombstones of a vanished religion, 

88 



A IIANDFUL OF HEATHER 

the roofless temple from which the Druids paid 
their westernmost adoration to the setting sun 
as he sank into the Atlantic — was not this the 
place where Sheila picked the bunch of wild 
flowers and gave it to her lover ? There is no- 
thing in history, I am sure, half so real to us as 
some of the things in fiction. The influence of 
an event upon our character is little affected by 
considerations as to whether or not it ever hap- 
pened. 

There were three churches in Stornoway, 
all Presbyterian, of course, and therefore full 
of pious emulation. The idea of securing an 
American preacher for an August Sabbath 
seemed to fall upon them simultaneously, and to 
offer the prospect of novelty without too much 
dano^er. The brethren of the U. P. consTresfa- 
tion, being a trifle more gleg than the others, 
arrived first at the inn, and secured the pro- 
mise of a morning sermon from Chancellor 
Howard Crosby. The session of the Free Kirk 
came in a body a little later, and to them my 
father pledged himself for the evening sermon. 
The senior elder of the Established Kirk, a 
snuff-taking man and very deliberate, was the 
last to appear, and to his request for an after- 
noon sermon there was nothing left to offer but 
the services of the young probationer in the- 
ology. I could see that it struck him as a peril- 

89 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

ous adventure. Questions about " the funda- 
mentals " glinted in his watery eye. He crossed 
and uncrossed his legs with solemnity, and blew 
his nose so frequently in a huge red silk hand- 
kerchief that it seemed like a signal of danger. 
At last he unburdened himself of his hesita- 
tions. 

"Ah 'm not saying that the young man will not 
be orthodox — ahem ! But ye know, sir, in the 
Kirk, we are not using hymns, but just the pure 
Psawms of Daffit, in the meetrical fairsion. 
And ye know, sir, they are ferry tifficult in the 
reating, whatefer, for a young man, and one that 
iss a stranger. And if his father will just be 
coming with him in the pulpit, to see that no- 
thing iss said amiss, that loill he ferry comfort- 
ing to the congregation.''^ 

So the dear governor swallowed his laughter 
gravely and went surety for his son. They ap- 
peared together in the church, a barnlike edifice, 
with great galleries half-way between the floor 
and the roof. Still higher up, the pulpit stuck 
like a swallow's nest against the wall. The two 
ministers climbed the precipitous stair and found 
themselves in a box so narrow that one must 
stand perforce, while the other sat upon the only 
seat. In this " ride and tie " fashion they went 
through the service. When it was time to preach, 
the young man dropped the doctrines as dis- 

90 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

creetly as possible upon tlie upturned counte- 
nances beneath him. I have forgotten now what 
it was all about, but there was a quotation from 
the Song of Solomon, ending with " Sweet is 
thy voice, and thy countenance is comely." And 
when it came to that, the probationer's eyes (if 
the truth must be told) went searching through 
that sea of faces for one that should be familiar 
to his heart, and to which he might make a per- 
sonal application of the Scripture passage — even 
the face of Sheila. 

There are rivers in the Lewis, at least two of 
them, and on one of these we had the offer of a 
rod for a day's fishing. Accordingly we cast lots, 
and the lot fell upon the youngest, and I went 
forth with a tall, red-legged gillie, to try for my 
first salmon. The Whitewater came singing 
down out of the moorland into a rocky valley, 
and there was a merry curl of air on the pools, 
and the silver fish were leaping from the stream. 
The gillie handled the big rod as if it had been 
a fairy's wand, but to me it was like a giant's 
spear. It was a very different affair from fish- 
ing with five ounces of split bamboo on a Long 
Island trout-pond. The monstrous fly, like an 
awkward bird, went fluttering everywhere but 
in the right direction. It was the mercy of Pro- 
vidence that preserved the gillie's life. But he 
was very patient and forbearing, leading me on 

91 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

from one pool to another, as I spoiled the water 
and snatched the hook out of the very mouth of 
rising fish, until at last we found a salmon that 
knew even less about the niceties of salmon- 
fishing than I did. He seized the fly firmly be- 
fore I could pull it away, and then, in a moment, 
I found myself attached to a creature with the 
strength of a whale and the agility of a flying- 
fish. He led me rushing up and down the bank 
like a madman. He played on the surface like 
a whirlwind, and sulked at the bottom like a 
stone. He meditated, with ominous delay, in 
the middle of the deepest pool, and then, dart- 
ing across the river, flung himself clean out of 
water and landed far up on the green turf of the 
opposite shore. My heart melted like a snowflake 
in the sea, and I thought that I had lost him for- 
ever. But he rolled quietly back into the water 
with the hook still set in his nose. A few min- 
utes afterwards I brought him within reach of 
the gaff, and my first salmon was glittering in 
the grass beside me. 

Then I remembered that William Black had 
described this very fish in the "Princess of 
Thule." I pulled the book from my pocket, 
and, lighting a pipe, sat down to read that de- 
lightful chapter over again. The breeze played 
softly down the valley. The warm sunlight was 
filled with the musical hum of insects and the 

92 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

murmur of falling waters. I thought how much 
pleasanter it would have been to learn salmon- 
fishing, as Black's hero did, from the Maid of 
Borva, than from a red-headed gillie. But, 
then, his salmon, after leaping across the stream, 
got away ; whereas mine was safe. A man can- 
not have everything in this world. I picked a 
spray of rosy bell-heather from the bank of the 
river, and pressed it between the leaves of the 
book in memory of Sheila. 

n. 

COMMON HEATHER. 

It is not half as far from Albany to Aberdeen 
as it is from New York to London. In fact, I 
venture to say that an American on foot will 
find himself less a foreigner in Scotland than in 
any other country in the Old World. There is 
something warm and hospitable — if he knew 
the language well enough he would call it couthy 
— in the greeting that he gets from the shepherd 
on the moor, and the conversation that he holds 
with the farmer's wife in the stone cottage, where 
he stops to ask for a drink of milk and a bit of 
oat-cake. He feels that there must be a drop of 
Scotch somewhere in his mingled blood, or at 
least that the texture of his thoug^ht and feelino's 
has been partly woven on a Scottish loom — per- 

93 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

haps the Shorter Catechism, or Robert Burns's 
poems, or the romances of Sir Walter Scott. 
At all events, he is among a kindred and com- 
prehending people. They do not speak English 
in the same way that he does — through the 
nose — but they think very much more in his 
mental dialect than the English do. They are 
independent and wide awake, curious and fuU 
of personal interest. The wayside mind in In- 
verness or Perth runs more to muscle and less 
to fat, has more active vanity and less passive 
pride, is more inquisitive and excitable and sym- 
pathetic — in short, to use a symbolist's descrip- 
tion, it is more apt to be red-headed — than in 
Surrey or Somerset. Scotchmen ask more ques- 
tions about America, but fewer foolish ones. 
You will never hear them inquiring whether 
there is any good bear-hunting in the neigh- 
bourhood of Boston, or whether Shakespeare is 
much read in the States. They have a healthy 
respect for our institutions, and have quite for- 
given (if, indeed, they ever resented) that little 
affair in 1776. They are all born Liberals. 
When a Scotchman says he is a Conservative, it 
only means that he is a Liberal with hesitations. 
And yet in North Britain the American pe- 
destrian will not find that amused and somewhat 
condescending toleration for his peculiarities, 
that placid willingness to make the best of all 

94 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

his vagaries of speech and conduct, that he finds 
in South Britain. In an English town you may 
do pretty much what you like on a Sunday, even 
to the extent of wearing a billycock hat to 
church, and peojile will put up with it from a 
countryman of Buffalo Bill and the Wild West 
Show. But in a Scotch village, if you whistle 
in the street on a Lord's Day, though it be a 
Moody and Sankey tune, you will be likely 
to get, as I did, an admonition from some long- 
legged, grizzled elder : 

'' Young man, do ye no ken it 's the Sawbath 
Day?" 

I recognized the reproof of the righteous, an 
excellent oil which doth not break the head, and 
took it gratefully at the old man's hands. For 
did it not prove that he regarded me as a man 
and a brother, a creature capable of being civil- 
ized and saved ? 

It was in the gray town of Dingwall that I 
had this bit of pleasant correction, as I was on 
the way to a fishing tramp through Sutherland- 
shire. This northwest corner of Great Britain 
is the best place in the whole island for a modest 
and impecunious angler. There are, or there 
were a few years ago, wild lochs and streams 
which are still practically free, and a man who 
is content with small things can pick up some 
very pretty sport from the highland inns, and 

95 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

make a good basket of memorable experiences 
every week. 

The inn at Lairg, overlooking the narrow 
waters of Loch Shin, was embowered in honey- 
suckles, and full of creature comfort. But 
there were too many other men with rods there 
to suit my taste. " The feesh in this loch," said 
the boatman, " iss not so numerous ass the feesh- 
ermen, but more wise. There iss not one of 
them that hass not felt the hook, and they know 
ferry well what side of the fly has the forkit 
tail." 

At Altnaharra, in the shadow of Ben Clebrig, 
there was a cozy little house with good fare, and 
abundant trout-fishing in Loch Naver and Loch 
Meadie. It was there that I fell in with a wan- 
dering pearl-peddler who gathered his wares 
from the mussels in the moorland streams. 
They were not of the finest quality, these Scotch 
pearls, but they had pretty, changeable colours 
of pink and blue upon them, like the iridescent 
light that plays over the heather in the long 
northern evenings. I thought it must be a hard 
life for the man, wading day after day in the ice- 
cold water, and groping among the coggly, slid- 
dery stones for the shellfish, and cracking open 
perhaps a thousand before he could find one 
pearl. " Oh, yess," said he, " and it iss not an 
easy life, and I am not saying that it will be so 

96 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

warm and dry ass liffing in a ricli house. But 
it iss the life that I am fit for, and I hef my own 
time and my thoughts to mysel', and that is a 
ferry goot thing ; and then, sir, I haf found the 
Pearl of Great Price, and I think upon that day 
and night." 

Under the black, shattered peaks of Ben 
Laoghal, where I saw an eagle poising day after 
day as if some invisible centripetal force bound 
him forever to that small circle of air, there was 
a loch with plenty of brown trout and a few 
sahno ferox ; and down at Tongue there was a 
little river where the sea trout sometimes come 
up with the tide. 

Here I found myself upon the north coast, 
and took the road eastward between the moun- 
tains and the sea. It was a beautiful region of 
desolation. There were rocky glens cutting 
across the road, and occasionally a brawling 
stream ran down to the salt water, breaking the 
line of cliffs with a little bay and a half -moon of 
yellow sand. The heather covered all the hills. 
There were no trees, and but few houses. The 
chief signs of human labour were the rounded 
piles of peat, and the square cuttings in the moor 
marking the places where the subterranean wood- 
choppers had gathered their harvests. The long 
straths were once cultivated, and every patch of 
arable land had its group of cottages full of 

97 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHEB 

children. Tlie human harvest has always been 
the richest and most abundant that is raised 
in the Highlands ; but unfortunately the supply 
exceeded the demand ; and so the crofters were 
evicted, and great flocks of sheep were put in 
possession of the land ; and now the sheep-pas- 
tures have been changed into deer-forests ; and 
far and wide along the valleys and across the 
hills there is not a trace of habitation, except the 
heaps of stones and the clumps of straggling 
bushes which mark the sites of lost homes. But 
what is one country's loss is another country's 
gain. Canada and the United States are in- 
finitely the richer for the tough, strong, fearless, 
honest men that were dispersed from these lonely 
straths to make new homes across the sea. 

It was after sundown when I reached the 
straggling village of Melvich, and the long 
day's journey had left me weary. But the inn, 
with its red-curtained windows, looked bright 
and reassuring. Thoughts of dinner and a good 
bed comforted my spirit — prematurely. For 
the inn was full. There were but five bedrooms 
and two parlors. The gentlemen who had the 
neighboring shootings occupied three bedrooms 
and a parlor ; the other two bedrooms had just 
been taken by the English fishermen who had 
passed me in the road an hour ago in the mail- 
coach (oh ! why had I not suspected that treach- 

98 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

erous vehicle ?) ; and the landlord and his wife 
assured me, with equal firmness and sympathy, 
that there was not another cot or pair of blankets 
in the house. I believed them, and was sinking 
into despair when Sandy M'Kaye appeared on 
the scene as my angel of deliverance. Sandy 
was a small, withered, wiry man, dressed in 
rusty gray, with an immense white collar thrust- 
ing out its points on either side of his chin, and 
a black stock climbing over the top of it. I 
guessed from his speech that he had once lived 
in the lowlands. He had hoped to be engaged 
as a gillie by the shooting party, but had been 
disappointed. He had wanted to be taken by 
the English fishermen, but another and younger 
man had stepped in before him. Now Sandy 
saw in me his Predestinated Opportunity, and 
had no idea of letting it post up the road that 
night to the next village. He cleared his throat 
respectfully and cut into the conversation. 

"Ah'm thinkin' the gentleman micht find a 
coomfortaible lodgin' wi' the weedow Macphair- 
son a wee bittie doon the road. Her dochter is 
awa' in Ameriky, an' the room is a verra fine 
room, an' it is a peety to hae it stannin' idle, 
an' ye wudna mind the few steps to and fro tae 
yir meals here, sir, wud ye? An' if ye 'ill 
gang wi' me ef ter dinner, 'a '11 be prood to shoo 
ye the hoose." 

LcfQ. 99 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

So, after a good dinner with the English 
fishermen, Sandy piloted me down the road 
through the thickening dusk. I remember a 
hoodie crow flew close behind us with a chok- 
ing, ghostly cough that startled me. The Mac- 
pherson cottage was a snug little house of stone, 
with fuchsias and roses growing in the front 
yard ; and the widow was a douce old lady, with 
a face like a winter apple in the month of April, 
wrinlded, but still rosy. She was a little doubt- 
ful about entertaining strangers, but when she 
heard I was from America she opened the doors 
of her house and her heart. And when, by a 
subtle cross examination that would have been 
a credit to the wife of a Connecticut deacon, 
she discovered the fact that her lodger was a 
minister, she did two things, with equal and im- 
mediate fervour; she brought out the big Bible 
and asked him to conduct evening worship, and 
she produced a bottle of old Glenlivet and 
begged him to " guard against takkin' cauld by 
takkin' a glass of speerits." 

It was a very pleasant fortnight at Melvich. 
Mistress Macpherson was so motherly that " tak- 
kin cauld " was reduced to a permanent impos- 
sibility. The other men at the inn proved to be 
very companionable fellows, quite different from 
the monsters of insolence that my anger had 
imagined in the moment of disappointment. The 

100 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

shooting party kept the table abundantly sup- 
plied with grouse and hares and higliland ven- 
ison ; and there was a piper to march up and 
down before the window and play while we ate 
dinner — a very complimentary and disquieting 
performance. But there are many occasions in 
life when pride can be entertained only at the 
expense of comfort. 

Of course Sandy was my gillie. It was a fine 
sight to see him exhibiting the tiny American 
trout-rod, tied with silk ribbons in its delicate 
case, to the other gillies and exulting over them. 
Every morning he woidd lead me away through 
the heather to some lonely loch on the shoulders 
of the hills, from which we could look down 
ujDon the Northern Sea and the blue Orkney 
Isles far away across the Pentland Firth. Some- 
times we would find a loch with a boat on it, 
and drift up and down, casting along the shores. 
Sometimes, in spite of Sandy's confident predic- 
tions, no boat could be found, and then I must 
put on the Mackintosh trousers and wade out 
over my hips into the water, and circumambu- 
late the pond, throwing the flies as far as possible 
towards the middle, and feeling my way carefully 
along the bottom with the long net-handle, while 
Sandy danced on the bank in an agony of appre- 
hension lest his Predestinated Opportunity should 
step into a deep hole and be drowned. It was 

101 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

a curious fact in natural history that on the 
lochs with boats the trout were in the shallow 
water, but in the boatless lochs they were away 
out in the depths. " Juist the total depraivity 
o' troots," said Sandy, " an' terrible fateegin'." 

Sandy had an aversion to commit himself to 
definite statements on any subject not theologi- 
cal. If you asked him how long the morning's 
tramp would be, it was "no verra long, juist 
a bit ay ant the hull yonner." And if, at the 
end of the seventh mile, you complained that it 
was much too far, he would never do more than 
admit that " it micht be shorter." If you called 
him to rejoice over a trout that weighed close 
upon two pounds, he allowed that it was "no 
bad — but there 's bigger anes i' the loch gin we 
cud but wile them oot." And at Innch-time, 
when we turned out a full basket of shining 
fish on the heather, the most that he would say, 
while his eyes snapped with joy and pride, was, 
"Aweel, we canna complain, the day." 

Then he would gather an armful of dried 
heather-stems for kindling, and dig out a few 
roots and crooked limbs of the long-vanished 
forest from the dry, brown, peaty soil, and make 
our camp-fire of prehistoric wood — just for the 
pleasant, homelike look of the blaze — and sit 
down beside it to eat our lunch. Heat is the 
least of the benefits that man gets from fire. It 

102 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

is the sign of cheerfulness and good comrade- 
ship. I would not willingly satisfy my hunger, 
even in a summer nooning, without a little flame 
burning on a rustic altar to consecrate and 
enliven the feast. When the bread and cheese 
were finished and the pipes were filled with 
Virginia tobacco, Sandy would begin to tell me, 
very solemnly and respectfully, about the mis- 
takes I had made in the fishing that day, and 
mourn over the fact that the largest fish had 
not been hooked. There was a strong strain of 
pessimism in Sandy, and he enjoyed this part of 
the sport immensely. 

But he was at his best in the walk home 
through the lingering twilight, when the mur- 
mur of the sea trembled through the air, and 
the incense of burning peat floated up from the 
cottages, and the stars blossomed one by one in 
the pale-green sky. Then Sandy dandered on 
at his ease down the hills, and discoursed of 
things in heaven and earth. He was an un- 
conscious follower of the theology of the Rever- 
end John Jasper, of Richmond, Virginia, and re- 
jected the Copernican theory of the universe as 
inconsistent with the history of Joshua. " Gin 
th(B sun doesna muve," said he, " what for wad 
Joshua be tellin' him to stond steel ? 'A wad 
suner beleeve there was a mistak' in the veesi- 
ble heevens than ae fault in the Guid Buik." 

103 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

Whereupon we held long discourse of astronomy 
and inspiration ; but Sandy concluded it with 
a philosophic word which left little to be said : 
"Aweel, yon teelescope is a wonnerful deescov- 
ery ; but 'a dinna think the less o' the Baible." 

m. 

WHITE HEATHER. 

Memory is a capricious and arbitrary crea- 
ture. You never can tell what pebble she will 
pick up from the shore of life to keep among 
her treasures, or what inconspicuous flower of 
the field she will preserve as the symbol of 

" Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

She has her own scale of values for these memen- 
tos, and knows nothing of the market price of 
precious stones or the costly sj^lendour of rare 
orchids. The thing that pleases her is the thing 
that she will hold fast. And yet I do not doubt 
that the most important things are always the 
best remembered ; only we must learn that the 
real importance of what we see and hear in the 
world is to be measured at last by its mean- 
ing, its significance, its intimacy with the heart 
of our heart and the life of our life. And when 
we find a little token of the past very safely 
and imperishably kept among our recollections, 

104 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

we must believe that memory has made no mis- 
take. It is because that little thing has entered 
into our experience most deeply, that it stays 
with us and we cannot lose it. 

You have half forgotten many a famous scene 
that you travelled far to look upon. You can- 
not clearly recall the sublime peak of Mont 
Blanc, the roaring curve of Niagara, the vast 
dome of St. Peter's. The music of Patti's crys- 
talline voice has left no distinct echo in your 
remembrance, and the blossoming of the century- 
plant is dimmer than the shadow of a dream. 
But there is a nameless valley among the hiUs 
where you can still trace every curve of the 
stream, and see the foam-bells floating on the 
pool below the bridge, and the long moss waver- 
ing in the current. There is a rustic song of 
a girl passing through the fields at sunset, that 
still repeats its far-off cadence in your listening 
ears. There is a small flower trembling on its 
stem in some hidden nook beneath the open sky, 
that never withers through all the changing 
years ; the wind passeth over it, but it is not 
gone — it abides forever in your soul, an ama- 
ranthine word of beauty and truth. 

White heather is not an easy flower to find. 
You may look for it among the highlands for 
a day without success. And when it is discov- 
ered, there is little outward charm to commend 

105 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

it. It lacks tlie grace of the dainty bells that 
hang so abundantly from the Erica Tetralix^ 
and the pink glow of the innumerable blossoms 
of the common heather. But then it is a symbol. 
It is the Scotch Edelweiss. It means sincere 
affection, and unselfish love, and tender wishes 
as pure as prayers. I shall always remember 
the evening when I found the white heather on 
the moorland above Glen Ericht. Or, rather, 
it was not I that found it (for I have little luck 
in the discovery of good omens, and have never 
plucked a four-leaved clover in my life), but 
my companion, the gentle Mistress of the Glen, 
whose hair was whiter than the tiny blossoms, 
and yet whose eyes were far quicker than mine 
to see and name every flower that bloomed in 
those lofty, widespread fields. 

Ericht Water is formed by the marriage of 
two streams, one flowing out of Strath Ardle 
and the other descending from Cairn Gowar 
through the long, lonely Pass of Glenshee. The 
Ericht begins at the bridge of Cally, and its 
placid, beautiful glen, unmarred by railway or 
factory, reaches almost down to Blairgowrie. 
On the southern bank, but far above the water, 
runs the hiarh road to Braemar and the Linn 
of Dee. On the other side of the river, nestling 
among the trees, is the low white manor-house, 

"An ancient home of peace." 
106 




■XJ 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

It is a place where one who had been wearied 
and perchance sore wounded in the battle of life 
might well desire to be carried, as Arthur to the 
island valley of Avilion, for rest and healing. 

I have no thought of renewing the conflicts 
and cares that filled that summer with sorrow. 
There were fightings without and fears within ; 
there was the surrender of an enterprise that 
had been cherished since boyhood, and the bitter 
sense of irremediable weakness that follows such 
a reverse ; there was a touch of that wrath with 
those we love, which, as Coleridge says, 

" Doth work like madness in the brain j " 

and, flying from these troubles across the sea, 
I had found my old comrade of merrier days sen- 
tenced to death, and caught but a brief glimpse 
of his pale, brave face as he went away into 
exile. At such a time the sun and the light 
and the moon and the stars are darkened, and 
the clouds return after rain. But through those 
clouds the Mistress of the Glen came to meet 
me — a stranger till then, but an appointed friend, 
a minister of needed grace, an angel of quiet 
comfort. The thick mists of rebellion, mistrust, 
and despair have long since rolled away, and 
against the background of the hills her figure 
stands out clearly, dressed in the fashion of fifty 
years ago, with the snowy hair gathered close 

107 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

beneath her widow's cap, and a spray of white 
heather in her outstretched hand. 

There were no other guests in the house by 
the river during those still days in the noontide 
hush of midsummer. Every morning, while the 
Mistress was busied with her household cares 
and letters, I would be out in the fields hearing 
the lark sing, and watching the rabbits as they 
ran to and fro, scattering the dew from the 
grass in a glittering spray. Or perhaps I would 
be angling down the river with the swift press- 
ure of the water around my knees, and an in- 
articulate current of cooling thoughts flowing on 
and on through my brain like the murmur of 
the stream. Every afternoon there were long 
walks with the Mistress in the old-fashioned 
garden, where wonderful roses were blooming; 
or through the dark, fir-shaded den where the 
wild burn dropped down to join the river; or 
out upon the high moor under the waning orange 
sunset. Every night there were luminous and 
restful talks beside the open fire in the library, 
when the words came clear and calm from the 
heart, unperturbed by the vain desire of saying 
brilliant things, which turns so much of our con- 
versation into a combat of wits instead of an 
interchange of thoughts. Talk like this is pos- 
sible only between two. The arrival of a third 
person sets the lists for a tournament, and offers 

108 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

the prize of approbation for a verbal victory. 
But where there are only two, the armor is laid 
aside, and there is no call to thrust and parry. 

One of the two should be a good listener, 
sympathetic, but not silent, giving confidence 
in order to attract it — and of this art a woman 
is the best master. But its finest secrets do not 
come to her until she has passed beyond the un- 
certain season of compliments and conquests, 
and entered into the serenity of a tranquil age. 

What is this foolish thing that men say about 
the impossibility of true intimacy and converse 
between the young and the old? Hamerton, 
for example, in his book on " Human Inter- 
course," would have us believe that a difference 
in years is a barrier between hearts. For my 
part, I have more often found it an open door, 
and a security of generous and tolerant welcome 
for the young soldier, who comes in tired and 
dusty from the battle-field, to tell his story of 
defeat or victory in the garden of still thoughts 
where old age is resting in the peace of hon- 
ourable discharge. I like what Robert Louis 
Stevenson says about it in his essay on Talk 
and Talkers. 

" Not only is the presence of the aged in itself 
remedial, but their minds are stored with an- 
tidotes, wisdom's simples, plain considerations 
overlooked by youth. They have matter to 

109 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

communicate, be they never so stupid. Their 
talk is not merely literature, it is great litera- 
ture ; classic by virtue of the speaker's detach- 
ment; studded, like a book of travel, with 
things we should not otherwise have learnt. 
. . . Where youth agrees with age, not where 
they differ, wisdom lies ; and it is when the 
young disciple finds his heart to beat in tune 
with his gray-haired teacher's that a lesson may 
be learned." 

The conversation of the Mistress of the Glen 
shone like the light and distilled like the dew, 
not only by virtue of what she said, but still 
more by virtue of what she was. Her face was 
a good counsel against discouragement ; and the 
cheerful quietude of her demeanor was a rebuke 
to all rebellious, cowardly, and discontented 
thoughts. It was not the striking novelty or 
profundity of her commentary on life that made 
it memorable, it was simply the truth of what 
she said and the gentleness with which she said 
it. Epigrams are worth little for guidance to 
the perplexed, and less for comfort to the 
wounded. But the plain, homely sayings which 
come from a soul that has learned the lesson of 
patient courage in the school of real experience, 
fall upon the wound like drops of balsam, and 
like a soothing lotion upon the eyes smarting 
and blinded with passion. 

110 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

She spoke of those who had walked with her 
long ago ill her garden, and for whose sake, now 
that they had all gone into the world of light, 
every flower was doubly dear. Would it be a 
true proof of loyalty to them if she lived gloom- 
ily or despondently because they were away? 
She spoke of the duty of being ready to welcome 
happiness as well as to endure pain, and of the 
strength that endurance wins by being grateful 
for small daily joys, like the evening light, and 
the smell of roses, and the singing of birds. 
She spoke of the faith that rests on the Unseen 
Wisdom and Love like a child on its mother's 
breast, and the melting away of doubts in the 
warmth of an effort to do some good in the 
world. And if that effort has conflict, and ad- 
venture, and confused noise, and mistakes, and 
even defeats mingled with it, in the stormy years 
of youth, is not that to be expected ? The burn 
roars and leaps in the den, and the stream chafes 
and frets through the rapids of the glen, and 
the river does not grow calm and smooth until 
it nears the sea. Courage is a virtue that the 
young cannot spare ; to lose it is to grow old be- 
fore the time ; it is better to make a thousand 
mistakes and suffer a thousand reverses than to 
run away from the battle. Resignation is the 
courage of old age ; it will grow in its own sea- 
son ; and it is a good day when it comes to us. 

Ill 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

Then there are no more disappointments ; for we 
have learned that it is even better to desire the 
things that we have than to have the things that 
we desire. And is not the best of all our hopes 
— the hope of immortality — always before us ? 
How can we be dull or heavy while we have that 
new experience to look forward to ? It will be 
the most joyful of all our travels and adventures. 
It will bring us our best acquaintances and 
friendships. But there is only one way to get 
ready for immortality, and that is to love this 
life, and live it as bravely and cheerfully and 
faithfully as we can. 

So my gentle teacher with the silver hair 
showed me the treasures of her ancient, simple 
faith ; and I felt that no sermons, nor books, nor 
arguments can strengthen the doubting heart so 
deeply as just to come into touch with a soul 
that is founded upon a rock, and has proved the 
truth of that plain religion whose highest phi- 
losophy is " Trust in the Lord and do good." 
At the end of the evening the household was 
gathered for prayers, and the Mistress kneeled 
among her servants, leading them, in her soft 
Scottish accent, through the old familiar peti- 
tions for pardon for the errors of the day, and 
refreshing sleep through the night and strength 
for the morrow. It is good to be in a land, 
whatever be the name of the Church that teaches 

112 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

it, where the people are not ashamed to pray. I 
have shared the blessing of Catholics at their 
table in lowly huts among the mountains of the 
Tyrol, and knelt with Covenanters at their house- 
hold altar in the glens of Scotland ; and all 
around the world, where the spirit of prayer is, 
there is peace. The genius of the Scotch has 
made many and great contributions to literatiu'e, 
but none I think, more precious, and none that 
comes closer to the heart, than the prayer which 
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote for his family in 
distant Samoa, the night before he died : — 

" We beseech thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, 
folk of many families and nations, gathered together 
in the peace of this roof : weak men and women sub- 
sisting under the covert of thy patience. Be patient 
still ; suffer us yet a while longer — with our broken 
promises of good, with our idle endeavours against 
evil — suffer us a while longer to endure, and (if it 
may be) help us to do better. Bless to us our extra- 
ordinary mercies ; if the day come when these must 
be taken, have us play the man under affliction. Be 
with our friends, be with ourselves. Go with each of 
us to rest ; if any awake, temper to them the dark 
hours of watching ; and when the day returns to us — 
our sun and comforter — call us with morning faces, 
eager to labour, eager to be happy, if happiness shall 
be our portion, and, if the day be marked to sorrow, 
strong to endure it. We thank thee and praise thee ; 

113 



A HANDFUL OF HEATHER 

and, in the words of Him to whom this day is sacred, 
close our oblation." 

The man who made that kindly human prayer 
knew the meaning of white heather. And I 
dare to hope that I too have known something of 
its meaning, since that evening when the Mis- 
tress of the Glen picked the spray and gave it to 
me on the lonely moor. " And now," she said, 
" you will be going home across the sea ; and you 
have been welcome here, but it is time that you 
should go, for there is the place where your real 
duties and troubles and joys are waiting for you. 
And if you have left any misunderstandings 
behind you, you will try to clear them up ; and 
if there have been any quarrels, you will heal 
them. Carry this little flower with you. It 's 
not the bonniest blossom in Scotland, but it 's the 
dearest, for the message that it brings. And 
you will remember that love is not getting, but 
giving ; not a wild dream of pleasure, and a 
madness of desire — oh no, love is not that — it 
is goodness, and honour, and peace, and pure liv- 
ing — yes, love is that ; and it is the best thing 
in the world, and the thing that lives longest. 
And that is what I am wishing for you and 
yours with this bit of white heather." 

114 



THE RESTIGOUCHE FROM A HORSE- 
YACHT 



' Dr. Paley was arde^itly attached to this amusement ; so much so, that 
when the Bishop of Durham inquired of him wJien one of his most im- 
portant ivorks would be finished, he said, zvith great simplicity afid 
good humour, * My Lord, I shall work steadily at it when the fly-fish- 
ing season is over.' " — Sir Humphry Davy : Salmonia. 



THE RESTIGOUCHE FROM A HORSE- 
YACHT 

The boundary line between the Province of 
Quebec and New Brunswick, for a considerable 
part of its course, resembles the name of the 
poet Keats ; it is " writ in water." But like 
his fame, it is water that never fails, — the 
limpid current of the river Restigouche. 

The railway crawls over it on a long bridge 
at Metapedia, and you are dropped in the dark- 
ness somewhere between midnight and dawn. 
When you open your green window-shutters the 
next morning, you see that the village is a dis- 
consolate hamlet, scattered along the track as 
if it had been shaken by chance from an open 
freight-car ; it consists of twenty houses, three 
shops, and a discouraged church perched upon 
a little hillock like a solitary mourner on the 
anxious seat. The one comfortable and pros- 
perous feature in the countenance of Metapedia 
is the house of the Restigouche Salmon Club 
— an old-fashioned mansion, with broad, white 
piazza, looking over rich meadow-lands. Here 

117 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

it was that I found my friend Favonius, presi- 
dent of solemn societies, j)illar of cliurch and 
state, ingenuously arrayed in gray knicker- 
bockers, a flannel sliirt, and a soft hat, waiting 
to take me on his horse-yacht for a voyage up 
the river. 

Have you ever seen a horse-yacht? Some- 
times it is called a scow ; but that sounds com- 
mon. Sometimes it is called a house-boat ; but 
that is too English. What does it profit a man 
to have a whole dictionary full of language at 
his service, unless he can invent a new and 
suggestive name for his friend's pleasure-craft? 
The foundation of the horse-yacht — if a thing 
that floats may be called fundamental — is a flat- 
bottomed boat, some fifty feet long and ten feet 
wide, with a draft of about eight inches. The 
deck is open for fifteen feet aft of the place 
where the bowsprit ought to be ; behind that it 
is completely covered by a house, cabin, cottage, 
or whatever you choose to call it, with straight 
sides and a peaked roof of a very early Gothic 
pattern. Looking in at the door you see, first 
of all, two cots, one on either side of the pas- 
sage ; then an open space with a dining-table, 
a stove, and some chairs ; beyond that a pantry 
with shelves, and a great chest for provisions. 
A door at the back opens into the kitchen, and 
from that another door oj^ens into a sleeping- 

118 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

room for the boatmen. A huge wooden tiller 
curves over the stern of the boat, and the helms- 
man stands upon the kitchen-roof. Two canoes 
are floating behind, holding back, at the end of 
their long tow-ropes, as if reluctant to follow so 
clumsy a leader. This is an accurate and duly 
attested description of the horse-yacht. If nec- 
essary it could be sworn to before a notary pub- 
lic. But 1 am perfectly sure that you might 
read this through without skipping a word, and 
if you had never seen the creature with your 
own eyes, you would have no idea how absurd it 
looks and how comfortable it is. 

While we were stowing away our trunks and 
bags under the cots, and making an equitable 
division of the hooks upon the walls, the motive 
power of the yacht stood patiently upon the 
shore, stamping a hoof, now and then, or shak- 
ing a shaggy head in mild protest against the 
flies. Three more pessimistic-looking horses I 
never saw. They were harnessed abreast, and 
fastened by a prodigious tow-rope to a short 
post in the middle of the forward deck. Their 
driver was a truculent, brigandish, bearded old 
fellow in long boots, a blue flannel shirt, and a 
black sombrero. He sat upon the middle horse, 
and -some wild instinct of color had made him 
tie a big red handkerchief around his shoulders, 
so that the eye of the beholder took delight in 

119 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

him. He posed like a bold, bad robber-chief. 
Bat in point of fact I believe he was the mildest 
and most inoffensive of men. We never heard 
him say anything except at a distance, to his 
horses, and we did not inquire what that was. 

Well, as I have said, we were haggling cour- 
teously over those hooks in the cabin, when the 
boat gave a lurch. The bow swung out into the 
stream. There was a scrambling and clattering 
of iron horse-shoes on the rough shingle of the 
bank; and when we looked out of doors, our 
house was moving up the river with the boat 
under it. 

The Restigouche is a noble stream, stately and 
swift and strong. It rises among the dense for- 
ests in the northern part of New Brunswick — 
a moist upland region, of never-failing springs 
and innumerous lakes — and pours a flood of 
clear, cold water one hundred and fifty miles 
northward and eastward through the hills into 
the head of the Bay of Chaleurs. There are no 
falls in its course, but rapids everywhere. It is 
steadfast but not impetuous, quick but not tur- 
bulent, resolute and eager in its desire to get to 
the sea, like the life of a man who has a pur- 
pose 

" Too great for haste, too high for rivah*y." 

The wonder is where all the water comes from. 
But the river is fed by more than six thousand 

120 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 



square miles of territory. From both sides the 
little brooks come dashing in with their supply. 
At intervals a larger stream, reaching away back 
among the mountains like a hand with many 
fingers to gather 

" The filtered tribute of the rough woodland," 

delivers its generous offering to the main cur- 
rent. And this also is like a human life, which 
receives wealth and power from hidden sources 
in other lives, and is fed abundantly from the 
past in order that it may feed the future. 

The names of the chief tributaries of the Res- 
tigouche are curious. There is the headstrong 
Metapedia, and the crooked Upsalquitch, and 
the Patapedia, and the Quatawamkedgwick. 
These are words at which the tongue balks at 
first, but you soon grow used to them and learn 
to take anything of five syllables with a rush, 
as a hunter takes a five-barred gate, trusting to 
fortune that you will come down with the accent 
in the right place. 

For six or seven miles above Metapedia the 
river has a breadth of about two hundred yards, 
and the valley slopes back rather gently to the 
mountains on either side. There is a good deal 
of cultivated land, and scattered farmhouses 
appear. The soil is excellent. But it is like 
a pearl cast before an obstinate, unfriendly 

121 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

climate. Late frosts prolong the winter. Early 
frosts curtail the summer. The only safe crops 
are grass, oats, and potatoes. And for half the 
year all the cattle must be housed and fed to 
keep them alive. This lends a melancholy 
aspect to agriculture. Most of the farmers 
look as if they had never seen better days. 
With few exceptions they are what a New Eng- 
lander would call " slack-twisted and shiftless." 
Their barns are pervious to the weather, and 
their fences fail to connect. Sleds and ploughs 
rust together beside the house, and chickens 
scratch up the front-door yard. In truth, the 
people have been somewhat demoralized by the 
conflicting claims of different occupations ; hunt- 
ing in the fall, lumbering in the winter and 
spring, and working for the American sj^orts- 
men in the brief angling season, are so much 
more attractive and offer so much larger returns 
of ready money, that the tedious toil of farming 
is neglected. But for all that, in the bright 
days of midsummer, these green fields sloping 
down to the water, and pastures high up among 
the trees on the hillsides, look pleasant from a 
distance, and give an inhabited air to the land- 
scape. 

At the mouth of the Upsalquitch we passed 
the first of the fishing-lodges. Originally the 
Restigouche Salmon Club leased the whole river 

122 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

from the Canadian Government, but since the 
establishment of rij^arian rights, a few years ago, 
a number of gentlemen have bought land front- 
ing on good pools, and put up little cottages of a 
less classical style than Charles Cotton's " Fisher- 
man's Ketreat " on the banks of the Eiver Dove, 
but better suited to this wild scenery, and more 
convenient to live in. The prevailing pattern is 
a very simple one ; it consists of a broad piazza 
with a small house in the middle of it. The 
house bears about the same proportion to the 
piazza that the crown of a Gainsborough hat 
does to the brim. And the cost of the edifice 
is to the cost of the land, as the first price of 
a share in a bankrupt railway is to the assess- 
ments which follow the reorganization. All the 
best points have been sold, and real estate on 
the Restigouche has been bid up to an absurd 
figure. In fact, the river is over-populated 
and probably over-fished. But we could hardly 
find it in our hearts to regret this, for it made 
the upward trip a very sociable one. At every 
lodge that was open, Favonius (who knows 
everybody) had a friend, and we must slip 
ashore in a canoe to leave the mail and refresh 
the inner man. 

An angler, like an Arab, regards hospitality as 
a religious duty. There seems to be something 
in the craft which inclines the heart to kindness 

123 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

and good-fellowship. Few anglers have I seen 
who were not pleasant to meet, and ready to do a 
good turn to a fellow-fisherman with the gift of 
a killing fly or the loan of a rod. Not their own 
particular and well-j)roved favourite, of course, 
for that is a treasure which no decent man would 
borrow; but with that exception the best in their 
store is at the service of an accredited brother. 
One of the Restigouche proprietors I remember, 
whose name bespoke him a descendant of Cale- 
donia's patron saint. He was fishing in front of 
his own door when we came up, with our splash- 
ing horses, through the pool ; but nothing would 
do but he must up anchor and have us away 
with him into the house to taste his good cheer. 
And there were his daughters with their books 
and needlework, and the photographs which 
they had taken pinned up on the wooden walls, 
among Japanese fans and bits of bright-coloured 
stuff in which the soul of woman delights, and, 
in a passive, silent way, the soul of man also. 
Then, after we had discussed the year's fishing, 
and the mysteries of the camera, and the deep 
question of what makes some negatives too thin 
and others too thick, we must go out to see the 
big salmon which one of the ladies had caught 
a few days before, and the large trout swim- 
ming about in their cold spring. It seemed to 
me, as we went on our way, that there could 

124 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

hardly be a more wholesome and pleasant sum- 
mer-life for well-bred young women than this, 
or two amusements more innocent and sensible 
than photography and fly-fishing. 

It must be confessed that the horse-yacht as 
a vehicle of travel is not remarkable in point of 
speed. Three miles an hour is not a very rapid 
rate of motion. But then, if you are not in 
a hurry, why should you care to make haste? 

The wild desire to be forever racing against 
old Father Time is one of the kill-joys of modern 
life. That ancient traveller is sure to beat you 
in the long run, and as long as you are trying 
to rival him, he will make your life a burden. 
But if you will only acknowledge his superiority 
and profess that you do not approve of racing 
after all, he will settle down quietly beside you 
and jog along like the most companionable of 
creatures. It is a pleasant pilgrimage in which 
the journey itself is part of the destination. 

As soon as one learns to regard the horse- 
yacht as a sort of moving home, it appears 
admirable. There is no dust or smoke, no rum- 
ble of wheels, or shriek of whistles. You are 
gliding along steadily through an ever-green 
world ; skirting the silent hills ; passing from 
one side of the river to the other when the 
horses have to swim the current to find a good 
foothold on the bank. You are on the water, 

125 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

but not at its mercy, for your craft is not dis- 
turbed by the heaving of rude waves, and the 
serene inhabitants do not say " I am sick." 
There is room enough to move about without 
falling overboard. You may sleep, or read, or 
write in your cabin, or sit upon the floating 
piazza in an arm-chair and smoke the pipe of 
peace, while the cool breeze blows in your face 
and the musical waves go singing down to the 
sea. 

There was one feature about the boat, which 
commended itself very strongly to my mind. It 
was possible to stand upon the forward deck 
and do a little trout-fishing in motion. By 
watching your chance, when the corner of a good 
pool was within easy reach, you could send out 
a hasty line and cajole a sea-trout from his 
hiding-place. It is true that the tow-ropes and 
the post made the back cast a little awkward ; 
and the wind sometimes blew the flies up on the 
roof of the cabin ; but then, with patience and 
a short line the thing could be done. I remem- 
ber a pair of good trout that rose together just 
as we were going through a boiling rapid ; and 
it tried the strength of my split-bamboo rod to 
bring those fish to the net against the current 
and the motion of the boat. 

When nightfall approached we let go the an- 
chor (to wit, a rope tied to a large stone on the 

126 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

shore), ate our dinner " with gladness and sin- 
gleness of heart " like the early Christians, and 
slept the sleep of the just, lulled by the mur- 
muring of the waters, and defended from the 
insidious attacks of the mosquito by the breeze 
blowing down the river and the impregnable 
curtains over the beds. At daybreak, long be- 
fore Favonius and I had finished our dreams, we 
were under way again ; and when the trampling 
of the horses on some rocky shore wakened us, 
we could see the steep hills gliding past the win- 
dows and hear the rapids dashing against the side 
of the boat, and it seemed as if we were still 
dreaming. 

At Cross Point, where the river makes a long 
loop around a narrow mountain, thin as a saw 
and crowned on its jagged edge by a rude 
wooden cross, we stopped for an hour to try the 
fishing. It was here that I hooked two myste- 
rious creatures, each of which took the fly when 
it was below the surface, pulled for a few mo- 
ments in a sullen way and then apparently 
melted into nothingness. It will always be a 
source of regret to me that the nature of these 
animals must remain unknown. While they 
were on the line it was the general opinion that 
they were heavy trout ; but no sooner had they 
departed, than I became firmly convinced, in 
accordance with a psychological law which holds 

127 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

good all over the world, that they were both enor- 
mous salmon. Even the Turks have a proverb 
which says, " Every fish that escapes appears 
larger than it is." No one can alter that con- 
viction, because no one can logically refute it. 
Our best blessings, like our largest fish, always 
depart before we have time to measure them. 

The Slide Pool is in the wildest and most pic- 
turesque part of the river, about thirty-five miles 
above Metapedia. The stream, flowing swiftly 
down a stretch of rapids between forest-clad 
hills, runs straight toward the base of an emi- 
nence so precipitous that the trees can hardly 
find a foothold upon it, and seem to be climbing 
up in haste on either side of the long slide which 
leads to the summit. The current, barred by 
the wall of rock, takes a great sweep to the right, 
dashing up at first in angry waves, then falling 
away in oily curves and eddies, until at last it 
sleeps in a black deep, apparently almost motion- 
less, at the foot of the hill. It was here, on the 
upper edge of the stream, opposite to the slide, 
that we brought our floating camp to anchor for 
some days. What does one do in such a water- 
ing-place ? 

Let us take a " specimen day." It is early 
morning, or to be more precise, about eight of 
the clock, and the white fog is just beginning to 
curl and drift away from the surface of the river. 

128 



THE EESTIGOUCHE 

Sooner than this it would be idle to go out. The 
preternaturally early bird in his greedy haste 
may catch the worm ; but the fly is never taken 
until the fog has lifted ; and in this the scientific 
angler sees, with gratitude, a remarkable adap- 
tation of the laws of nature to the tastes of man. 
The canoes are waiting at the front door. We 
step into them and push off, Favonius going up 
the stream a couple of miles to the mouth of the 
Patapedia, and I down, a little shorter distance, 
to the famous Indian House Pool. The slim boat 
glides easily on the current, with a smooth buoy- 
ant motion, quickened by the strokes of the pad- 
dles in the bow and the stern. We pass around 
two curves in the river and find ourselves at the 
head of the pool. Here the man in the stern 
drops the anchor, just on the edge of the bar 
where the rapid breaks over into the deeper 
water. The long rod is lifted ; the fly unhooked 
from the reel ; a few feet of line pulled through 
the rings, and the fishing begins. 

First cast, — to the right, straight across the 
stream, about twenty feet : the current carries 
the fly down with a semicircular sweep, until it 
comes in line with the bow of the canoe. Second 
cast, — to the left, straight across the stream, 
with the same motion : the semicircle is com- 
pleted, and the fly hangs quivering for a few 
seconds at the lowest point of the arc. Three 

129 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

or four feet of line are drawn from tlie reel. 
Third cast to the right ; fourth cast to the left. 
Then a little more line. And so, with widening 
half-circles, the water is covered, gradually and 
very carefully, until at length the angler has as 
much line out as his two-handed rod can lift and 
swing. Then the first " drop " is finished ; the 
man in the stern quietly pulls up the anchor and 
lets the boat drift down a few yards ; the same 
process is repeated on the second drop ; and so 
on, until the end of the run is reached and the 
fly has passed over all the good water. This 
seems like a very regular and somewhat mechan- 
ical proceeding as one describes it, but in the 
performance it is rendered intensely interesting 
by the knowledge that at any moment it is liable 
to be interrupted. 

This morning the interruption comes early. 
At the first cast of the second drop, before the 
fly has fairly lit, a great flash of silver darts 
from the waves close by the boat. Usually a 
salmon takes the fly rather slowly, carrying it 
under water before he seizes it in his mouth. 
But this one is in no mood for deliberation. 
He has hooked himself with a rush, and the line 
goes whirring madly from the reel as he races 
down the pool. Keep the point of the rod low ; 
he must have his own way now. Up with the 
anchor quickly, and send the canoe after him, 

130 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

bowman and sternman paddling with swift 
strokes. He has reached the deepest water ; he 
stops to think what has happened to him; we 
have passed around and below him ; and now, 
with the current to help us, we can begin to reel 
in. Lift the point of the rod, with a strong, 
steady pull. Put the force of both arms into it. 
The tough wood will stand the strain. The fish 
must be moved ; he must come to the boat if he 
is ever to be landed. He gives a little and 
yields slowly to the pressure. Then suddenly 
he gives too much, and runs straight toward us. 
Reel in now as swiftly as possible, or else he 
will get a slack on the line and escape. Now 
he stops, shakes his head from side to side, 
and darts away again across the pool, leaping 
high out of water. Drop the point of the rod 
quickly, for if he falls on the leader he will 
surely break it. Another leap, and another! 
Truly he is "a merry one," as Sir Humphry 
Davy says, and it will go hard with us to hold 
him. But those great leaps have exhausted his 
strength, and now he follows the line more 
easily. The men push the boat back to the shal- 
low side of the pool until it touches lightly on 
the shore. The fish comes slowly in, fighting a 
little and making a few short runs ; he is tired 
and turns slightly on his side ; but even yet he 
is a heavy weight on the line, and it seems a 

131 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

wonder that so slight a thing as the leader can 
guide and draw him. Now he is close to the 
boat. The boatman steps out on a rock with his 
gaff. Steadily now and slowly, lift the rod, bend- 
ing it backward. A quick sure stroke of the 
steel ! a great splash ! and the salmon is lifted 
upon the shore. How he flounces about on the 
stones. Give him the coiij) de grace at once, for 
his own sake as well as for ours. And now look 
at him, as he lies there on the green leaves. 
Broad back; small head tapering to a point; 
clean, shining sides with a few black spots on 
them ; it is a fish fresh-run from the sea, in per- 
fect condition, and that is the reason why he has 
given such good sport. 

We must try for another before we go back. 
Again fortune favours us, and at eleven o'clock 
we pole up the river to the camp with two good 
salmon in the canoe. Hardly have we laid them 
away in the ice-box, when Favonius comes drop- 
ping down from Patapedia with three fish, one 
of them a twenty-four pounder. And so the 
morning's work is done. 

In the evening, after dinner, it was our custom 
to sit out on the deck, watching the moonlight as 
it fell softly over the black hills and changed the 
river into a pale flood of rolling gold. The fra- 
grant wreaths of smoke floated lazily away on 
the faint breeze of night. There was no sound 

132 




H 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

save the rushing of the water and the crackling 
of the camp-fire on the shore. We talked of 
many things in the heavens above, and the earth 
beneath, and the waters under the earth ; touch- 
ing lightly here and there as the spirit of va- 
grant converse led us. Favonius has the good 
sense to talk about himself occasionally and tell 
his own experience. The man who will not do 
that must always be a dull companion. Modest 
egoism is the salt of conversation : you do not 
want too much of it ; but if it is altogether omit- 
ted, everything tastes flat. I remember well the 
evening when he told me the story of the Sheep 
of the Wilderness. 

" I was ill that summer," said he, " and the 
doctor had ordered me to go into the woods, but 
on no account to go without plenty of fresh meat, 
which was essential to my recovery. So we set 
out into the wild country north of Georgian Bay, 
taking a live sheep with us in order to be sure 
that the doctor's prescription might be faithfully 
followed. It was a yoimg and innocent little 
beast, curling itself up at my feet in the canoe, 
and following me about on shore like a dog. I 
gathered grass every day to feed it, and carried 
it in my arms over the rough portages. It ate 
out of my hand and rubbed its woolly head 
against my leggings. To my dismay, I found 
that I was beginning to love it for its own sake 

133 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

and without any ulterior motives. The thought 
of killing and eating it became more and more 
painful to me, until at length the fatal fascina- 
tion was complete, and my trip became practi- 
cally an exercise of devotion to that sheep. I 
carried it everywhere and ministered fondly to 
its wants. Not for the world would I have 
alluded to mutton in its presence. And when 
we returned to civilization I parted from the 
creature with sincere regret and the conscious- 
ness that I had humoured my affections at the 
expense of my digestion. The sheep did not 
give me so much as a look of farewell, but fell 
to feeding on the grass beside the farmhouse 
with an air of placid triumi:)h." 

After hearing this toucliing tale, I was glad 
that no great intimacy had sprung up between 
Favonius and the chickens which we carried in 
a coop on the forecastle head, for there is no 
telling what restrictions his tender-heartedness 
might have laid upon our larder. But perhaps 
a chicken would not have given such an opening 
for misplaced affection as a sheep. There is a 
great difference in animals in this respect. I 
certainly never heard of any one falling in love 
with a salmon in such a way as to regard it as 
a fond companion. And this may be one reason 
why no sensible person who has tried fishing has 
ever been able to see any cruelty in it. 

134: 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

Suppose tlie fish is not cauglit by an angler, 
what is his alternative fate ? He will either 
perish miserably in the struggles of the crowded 
net, or die of old age and starvation like the 
long, lean stragglers which are sometimes found 
in the shallow pools, or be devoured by a larger 
fish, or torn to pieces by a seal or an otter. 
Compared with any of these miserable deaths, 
the fate of a salmon who is hooked in a clear 
stream and after a glorious fight receives the 
happy dispatch at the moment when he touches 
the shore, is a sort of euthanasia. And, since 
the fish was made to be man's food, the angler 
who brings him to the table of destiny in the 
cleanest, quickest, kindest way is, in fact, his 
benefactor. 

There were some days, however, when our 
benevolent intentions toward the salmon were 
frustrated ; mornings when they refused to rise, 
and evenings when they escaped even the skil- 
ful endeavours of Favonius. In vain did he try 
every fly in his book, from the smallest " Silver 
Doctor " to the largest " Golden Eagle." The 
" Black Dose " would not move them. The 
" Durham Ranger " covered the pool in vain. 
On days like this, if a stray fish rose, it was hard 
to land him, for he was usually but slightly 
hooked. 

I remember one of these shy creatures which 

135 



THE RESTIGOUCHE 

led me a pretty dance at the mouth of Patapedia. 
He came to the fly just at dusk, rising very 
softly and quietly, as if he did not really care 
for it but only wanted to see what it was like. 
He went down at once into deep water, and be- 
gan the most dangerous and exasperating of 
all salmon-tactics, moving around in slow circles 
and shaking his head from side to side, with 
sullen pertinacity. This is called " jigging," 
and unless it can be stopped, the result is fatal. 

I could not stop it. That salmon was deter- 
mined to jig. He knew more than I did. 

The canoe followed him down the pool. He 
jigged away past all three of the inlets of the 
Patapedia, and at last, in the still, deep water be- 
low, after we had laboured with him for half an 
hour, and brought him near enough to see that 
he was immense, he calmly opened his mouth 
and the fly came back to me void. That was 
a sad evening, in which all the consolations of 
philosophy were needed. 

Sunday was a very peaceful day in our camp. 
In the Dominion of Canada, the question "to 
fish or not to fish " on the first day of the week 
is not left to the frailty of the individual con- 
science. The law on the subject is quite expli- 
cit, and says that between six o'clock on Satur- 
day evening and six o'clock on Monday morning 
all nets shall be taken up and no one shall wet 

136 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

a line. The Restigouche Salmon Club has its 
guardians stationed all along the river, and they 
are quite as inflexible in seeing that their em- 
ployers keej) this law as the famous sentinel was 
in refusing to let Napoleon pass without the 
countersign. But I do not think that these keen 
sportsmen regard it as a hardship ; they are 
quite willing that the fish should have '' an off 
day " in every week, and only grumble because 
some of the net-owners down at the mouth of the 
river have brought political influence to bear in 
their favour and obtained exemption from the 
rule. For our part, we were nothing loath to 
hang up our rods, and make the day different 
from other days. 

In the morning we had a service in the cabin 
of the boat, gathering a little congregation of 
guardians and boatmen and people from a soli- 
tary farmhouse up the river. They came in 
pirogues — long, narrow boats hollowed from 
the trunk of a tree ; the black-eyed, brown-faced 
girls sitting back to back in the middle of the 
boat, and the men standing up bending to their 
poles. It seemed a picturesque way of travel- 
ling, although none too safe. 

In the afternoon we sat on deck and looked 
at the water. What a charm there is in watch- 
ing a swift stream ! The eye never wearies of 
following its curls and eddies, the shadow of the 

137 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

waves dancing over the stones, the strange, 
crinkling lines of sunlight in the shallows. 
There is a sort of fascination in it, lulling and 
soothing the mind into a quietude which is even 
pleasanter than sleep, and making it almost 
possible to do that of which we so often speak, 
but which we never quite accomplish — " think 
about nothing." Out on the edge of the pool, 
we could see five or six huge salmon, moving 
slowly from side to side, or lying motionless like 
gray shadows. There was nothing to break the 
silence except the thin clear whistle of the white- 
throated sparrow far back in the woods. This 
is almost the only bird-song that one hears 
on the river, unless you count the metallic 
" chr-r-r-r " of the kingfisher as a song. 

Every now and then one of the salmon in the 
pool would lazily roll out of water, or spring high 
into the air and fall back with a heavy splash. 
What is it that makes salmon leap ? Is it pain 
or pleasure ? Do they do it to escape the attack 
of another fish, or to shake off a parasite that 
clings to them, or to practise jumping so that 
they can ascend the falls when they reach them, 
or simply and solely out of exuberant gladness 
and joy of living? Any one of these reasons 
would be enough to account for it on week-days. 
On Sunday I am quite sure they do it for the 
trial of the fisherman's faith. 

138 




A Picturesque Way of Travelling 



THE BESTIGOUCHE 

But how should I tell all the little incidents 
which made that lazy voyage so delightful ? Fa- 
vonius was the ideal host, for on water, as well 
as on land, he knows how to provide for the lib- 
erty as well as for the wants of his guests. He 
understands also the fine art of conversation, 
which consists of silence as well as speech. And 
when it comes to angling, Izaak Walton himseK 
could not have been a more profitable teacher 
by precept or example. Indeed, it is a curious 
thouo^ht, and one full of sadness to a well-consti- 
tuted mind, that on the Restigouche " I. W." 
would have been at sea, for the beloved father 
of all fishermen passed through this world with- 
out ever catching a salmon. So ill does fortune 
match with merit here below. 

At last the days of idleness were ended. "We 
could not 

" Fold our tents like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away ; " 

but we took down the long rods, put away the 
heavy reels, made the canoes fast to the side of 
the house, embarked the three horses on the 
front deck, and then dropped down with the 
current, swinging along through the rapids, and 
drifting slowly through the still places, now 
grounding on a hidden rock, and now sweeping 
around a sharp curve, until at length we saw the 
roofs of Metapedia and the ugly bridge of the 

139 



THE BESTIGOrCHi: 

railway spaniiiiig the river. There we left our 
floating house, awkward and helpless, like some 
sti'anfre relic of the flood, stiunded on the shore. 
And as we climbed the bank we looked back and 
wondered whether Xoah. was sorry when he said 
good-bye to his ark. 



140 



ALPENROSEiN AND GOAT'S MILK 



' Nay, let rm UU you, there be many thai have forty times oitr estates, 
thai -would gr:;t tke greatest part of it to he healthful and cheerful like 
us ; ivho, -with the expense of a little money, have ate, and drank, and 
laughed, and angled, and sung, and slept securely ; and rose next day, 
and cast away care, and sung, and laughed, and angled again ; Tvhich 
are blessings rich men cannot purchase -wizh all their money.'''' 

IzAAK Walton: The CompleU Angler. 







^^^'>3^/--:v 









ALPENROSEN AND GOAT'S MILK 

A GREAT deal of the pleasure of life lies in 
bringing together things which have no connec- 
tion. That is the secret of humour — at least so 
we are told by the philosophers who explain the 
jests that other men have made — and in regard 
to travel, I am quite sure that it must be illogical 
in order to be entertaining. The more contrasts 
it contains, the better. 

Perhaps it was some philosophical reflection 
of this kind that brought me to the resolution, 
on a certain summer day, to make a little jour- 
ney, as straight as possible, from the sea-level 
streets of Venice to the lonely, lofty summit of 
a Tyrolese mountain, called, for no earthly rea- 
son that I can discover, the Gross- Venediger. 

But apart from the philosophy of the matter, 
which I must confess to passing over very super- 
ficially at the time, there were other and more 
cogent reasons for wanting to go from Venice to 
the Big Venetian. It was the fii'st of July, and 
the city on the sea was becoming tepid. A 

143 



ALPENEOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

slumbrous haze brooded over canals and palaces 
and cburclies. It was difficult to keep one's 
conscience awake to Baedeker and a sense of 
moral obligation ; Kuskin was impossible, and a 
picture-gallery was a penance. We floated laz- 
ily from one place to another, and decided that, 
after all, it was too warm to go in. The cries 
of the gondoliers, at the canal corners, grew 
more and more monotonous and dreamy. There 
was danger of our falling fast asleep and having 
to pay by the hour for a day's repose in a gon- 
dola. If it grew much warmer, we might be 
compelled to stay until th« following winter in 
order to recover energy enough to get away. 
All the signs of the times pointed northward, 
to the mountains, where we should see glaciers 
and snow-fields, and pick Alpenrosen, and drink 
goat's milk fresh from the real goat. 

I. 

The first stage on the journey thither was by 
rail to Belluno — about four or five hours. It is 
a sufficient commentary on railway travel that 
the most im]3ortant thing about it is to tell how 
many hours it takes to get from one place to 
another. 

We arrived in Belluno at night, and when 
we awoke the next morning we found ourselves 
in a picturesque little city of Venetian aspect, 

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a 



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ALPENEOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

with a piazza and a campanile and a Palladian 
cathedral, surrounded on all sides by lofty hills. 
We were at the end of the railway and at the 
beginning of the Dolomites. 

Although I have a constitutional aversion to 
scientific information given by unscientific per- 
sons, such as clergymen and men of letters, I 
must go in that direction far enough to make it 
clear that the word Dolomite does not describe 
a kind of fossil, nor a sect of heretics, but a 
formation of mountains lying between the Alps 
and the Adriatic. Draw a diamond on the map, 
with Brixen at the northwest corner, Lienz at 
the northeast, Belluno at the southeast, and 
Trent at the southwest, and you will have 
included the region of the Dolomites, a country 
so picturesque, so interesting, so full of sublime 
and beautiful scenery, that it is equally a won- 
der and a blessing that it has not been long 
since completely overrun by tourists and ruined 
with railways. It is true, the glaciers and 
snow-fields are limited ; the waterfalls are com- 
paratively few and slender, and the rivers small ; 
the loftiest peaks are little more than ten thou- 
sand feet high. But, on the other hand, the 
mountains are always near, and therefore always 
imposing. Bold, steep, fantastic masses of 
naked rock, they rise suddenly from the green 
and flowery valleys in amazing and endless con- 

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ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

trast ; they mirror themselves in the tiny moun- 
tain lakes like pictures in a dream. 

I believe the guide-book says that they are 
formed of carbonate of lime and carbonate of 
magnesia in chemical composition ; but even if 
this be true, it need not prejudice any candid 
observer against them. For the simple and 
fortunate fact is that they are built of such stone 
that wind and weather, keen frost and melting 
snow and rushing water have worn and cut and 
carved them into a thousand shapes of wonder 
and beauty. It needs but little fancy to see in 
them walls and towers, cathedrals and cam- 
paniles, fortresses and cities, tinged with many 
hues from pale gray to deep red, and shining in 
an air so soft, so pure, so cool, so fragrant, 
under a sky so deep and blue and a sunshine so 
genial, that it seems like the happy union of 
Switzerland and Italy. 

The great highway through this region from 
south to north is the Ampezzo road, which was 
constructed in 1830, along the valleys of the 
Piave, the Boite, and the Rienz — the ancient 
line of travel and commerce between Venice 
and Innsbruck. The road is superbly built, 
smooth and level. Our carriage rolled along 
so easily that we forgot and forgave its vener- 
able appearance and its lack of accommodation 
for trunks. We had been persuaded to take 

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ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

four horses, as our luggage seemed too formi- 
dable for a single pair. But in effect our conces- 
sion to apparent necessity turned out to be a 
mere display of superfluous luxury, for the two 
white leaders did little more than show their 
feeble paces, leaving the gray wheelers to do 
the work. We had the elevating sense of 
travelling four-in-hand, however — a satisfaction 
to which I do not believe any human being is 
altogether insensible. 

At Longarone we breakfasted for the second 
time, and entered the narrow gorge of the Piave. 
The road was cut out of the face of the rock. 
Below us the long lumber-rafts went shooting 
down the swift river. Above, on the right, 
were the jagged crests of Monte Furlon and 
Premaggiore, which seemed to us very wonder- 
ful, because we had not yet learned how jagged 
the Dolomites can be. At Perarolo, where the 
Boite joins the Piave, there is a lump of a 
mountain in the angle between the rivers, and 
around this we crawled in long curves until we 
had risen a thousand feet, and arrived at the 
small Hotel Yenezia, where we were to dine. 

While dinner was preparing, the Deacon and 
I walked up to Pieve di Cadore, the birthplace 
of Titian. The house in which the great painter 
first saw the colours of the world is still standing, 
and tradition points out the very room in which 

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ALPENBOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

he began to paint. I am not one of those who 
would inquire too closely into such a legend as 
this. The cottage may have been rebuilt a 
dozen times since Titian's day ; not a scraj) of 
the original stone or plaster may remain ; but 
beyond a doubt the view that we saw from the 
window is the same that Titian saw. Now, for 
the first time, I could understand and appre- 
ciate the landscape-backgrounds of his pictures. 
The compact masses of mountains, the bold, 
sharp forms, the hanging rocks of cold gray 
emerging from green slopes, the intense blue 
aerial distances — these all had seemed to be 
unreal and imaginary — compositions of the 
studio. But now I knew that, whether Titian 
painted out-of-doors, like our modern impres- 
sionists, or not, he certainly painted what he 
had seen, and painted it as it is. 

The graceful brown-eyed boy who showed us 
the house seemed also to belong to one of 
Titian's pictures. As we were going away, the 
Deacon, for lack of copper, rewarded him with 
a little silver piece, a half-lira, in value about 
ten cents. A celestial rapture of surprise 
spread over the child's face, and I know not 
what blessings he invoked upon us. He called 
his companions to rejoice with him, and we left 
them clapping their hands and dancing. 

Driving after one has dined has always a 

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ALP EN ROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

peculiar charm. The motion seems pleasanter, 
the landscape finer than in the morning hours. 
The road from Cadore ran on a high level, 
through sloping pastures, white villages, and 
bits of larch forest. In its narrow bed, far 
below, the river Boite roared as gently as 
Bottom's lion. The afternoon sunlight touched 
the snow-capped pinnacle of Antelao and the 
massive pink wall of Sorapis on the right ; on 
the left, across the valley, Monte Pelmo's vast 
head and the wild crests of La Rochetta and 
Formin rose dark against the glowing sky. The 
peasants lifted their hats as we passed, and gave 
us a pleasant evening greeting. And so, almost 
without knowing it, we slipped out of Italy into 
Austria, and drew up before a bare, square stone 
building with the double black eagle, like a 
strange fowl split for broiling, staring at us 
from the wall, and an inscription to the effect 
that this was the Royal and Imperial Austrian 
Custom-house. 

The officer saluted us so politely that we felt 
quite sorry that his duty required him to disturb 
our luggage. " The law obliged him to open 
one trunk ; courtesy forbade him to open more." 
It was quickly done ; and, without having to 
make any contribution to the income of His 
Royal and Imperial Majesty, Francis Joseph, 
we rolled on our way, through the hamlets of 

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ALPENBOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

Acqua Bona and Zuel, into tlie Ampezzan me- 
tropolis of Cortina, at sundown. 

The modest inn called " The Star of Gold " 
stood facing the public square, just below the 
church, and the landlady stood facing us in the 
doorway, with an enthusiastic welcome — alto- 
gether a most friendly and entertaining land 
lady, whose one desire in life seemed to be that 
we should never regret having chosen her house 
instead of " The White Cross," or " The Black 
Eagle." 

" O ja ! " she had our telegram received ; and 
would we look at the rooms? Outlooking on 
the piazza, with a balcony from which we could 
observe the Festa of to-morrow. She hoped 
they would please us. "Only come in; ac- 
commodate yourselves." 

It was all as she promised ; three little bed- 
rooms, and a little salon opening on a little 
balcony ; queer old oil-paintings and framed 
embroideries and tiles hanging on the walls ; 
spotless curtains, and board floors so white that 
it would have been a shame to eat off them 
without spreading a cloth to keep them from 
being soiled. 

" These are the rooms of the Baron Rothschild 
when he comes here always in the summer — with 
nine horses and nine servants — the Baron Roth- 
schild of Vienna." 

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ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

I assured her that we did not know the 
Baron, but that should make no difference. We 
woukl not ask her to reduce the price on account 
of a little thing like that. 

She did not quite grasp this idea, but hoped 
that we would not find the pension too dear 
at a dollar and fifty-seven and a half cents a day 
each, with a little extra for the salon and the 
balcony. " The English people all please them- 
selves here — there comes many every summer 

— English Bishops and their families." 

I inquired whether there were many Bishops 
in the house at that moment. 

" No, just at present — she was very sorry 

— none." 

" Well, then," I said, " it is all right. We 
will take the rooms." 

Good Signora Barbaria, you did not speak 
the American language, nor understand those 
curious perversions of thought which pass among 
the Americans for humour ; but you imderstood 
how to make a little inn cheerful and home-like ; 
yours was a very simple and agreeable art of 
keeping a hotel. As we sat in the balcony after 
supper, listening to the capital jjlaying of the 
village orchestra, and the Tyrolese songs with 
which they varied their music, we thought with- 
in ourselves that we were fortunate to have fallen 
upon the Star of Gold. 

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ALPENEOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

II. 

Cortina lies in its valley like a white shell 
that has rolled down into a broad vase of mala- 
chite. It has about a hundred houses and seven 
hundred inhabitants, a large church and two 
small ones, a fine stone campanile with excellent 
bells, and seven or eight little inns. But it is 
more important than its size would signify, for 
it is the capital of the district whose lawful title 
is Magnifica Goniunita di Ampezzo — a name 
conferred long ago by the Kepublic of Venice. 
In the fifteenth century it was Venetian terri- 
tory ; but in 1516, under Maximilian I., it was 
joined to Austria ; and it is now one of the rich- 
est and most prosperous communes of the Tyrol. 
It embraces about thirty-five hundred people, 
scattered in hamlets and clusters of houses 
through the green basin with its four entrances, 
lying between the peaks of Tofana, Cristallo, 
Sorapis, and Nuvolau. The well-cultivated 
grain fields and meadows, the smooth alps filled 
with fine cattle, the well-built houses with their 
white stone basements and balconies of dark 
brown wood and broad overhanging roofs, all 
speak of industry and thrift. But there is more 
than mere agricultural prosperity in this valley. 
There is a fine race of men and women — • 
intelligent, vigourous, and with a strong sense 

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ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

of beauty. The outer walls of the annex of the 
Hotel Aquila Nera are covered with frescoes 
of marked power and originality, painted by 
the son of the innkeeper. The art schools 
of Cortina are famous for their beautiful work 
in gold and silver filigree, and wood-inlaying. 
There are nearly two hundred j^upils in these 
schools, all peasants' children, and they produce 
results, especially in mtarsia, which are admir- 
able. The village orchestra, of which I spoke a 
moment ago, is trained and led by a peasant's 
son, who has never had a thorough musical edu- 
cation. It must have at least twenty-five mem- 
bers, and as we heard them at the Festa they 
seemed to play with extraordinary accuracy and 
expression. 

This Festa gave us a fine chance to see the 
people of the Ampezzo all together. It was the 
annual jubilation of the district ; and from all 
the outlying hamlets and remote side valleys, 
even from the neighboring vales of Agordo and 
Auronzo, across the mountains, and from 
Cadore, the peasants, men and women and chil- 
dren, had come in to the Sagro at Cortina. 
The piazza — which is really nothing more than 
a broadening of the road behind the church — 
was quite thronged. There must have been be- 
tween two and three thousand people. 

The ceremonies of the day began with general 

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ALPENEOSEN AND GOATS MILE 

cliurch-going. The people here are honestly 
and naturally religious. I have seen so many 
examples of what can only be called " sincere 
and unal^ected piety/' that I cannot doubt it. 
The church, on Cortina's feast-day, was crowded 
to the doors with worshippers, who gave every 
evidence of taking part not only with the voice, 
but also with the heart, in the worship. 

Then followed the public unveiling of a tab- 
let, on the wall of the little Inn of the Anchor, 
to the memory of Giammaria Ghedini, the 
founder of the art-schools of Cortina. There 
was music by the band; and an oration by a 
native Demosthenes (who spoke in Italian so 
fluent that it ran through one's senses like 
water through a sluice, leaving nothing be- 
hind), and an original Canto ^ sung by the vil- 
lage choir, with a general chorus, in which they 
called upon the various mountains to " reecho 
the name of the beloved master John-Mary as 
a model of modesty and true merit," and wound 
up with — 

*^ Hurrah for John-Mary ! Hurrah for his art ! 
Hurrah for all teachers as skilful as he ! 
Hurrah for us all, who have now taken part 
In singing together vado , . re . . mi.^^ 

It was very primitive, and I do not suppose 
that the celebration was even mentioned in the 

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ALPENBOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

newspapers of the great world ; but, after all, 
has not the man who wins such a triumph as 
this in the hearts of his own people, for whom 
he has made labour beautiful with the charm of 
art, deserved better of fame than many a crowned 
monarch or conquering warrior ? We should be 
wiser if we gave less glory to the men who have 
been successful in forcing their fellow-men to 
die, and more glory to the men who have been 
successful in teaching their fellow-men how to 
live. 

But the Festa of Cortina did not remain all 
day on this high moral plane. In the afternoon 
came what our landlady called " allerlei Dumm- 
Jieiten.^' There was a grand lottery for the ben- 
efit of the Volunteer Fire Department. The 
high officials sat up in a green wooden booth in 
the middle of the square, and called out the 
numbers and distributed the prizes. Then there 
was a greased pole with various articles of an 
attractive character tied to a large hoop at the 
top — silk aprons and a green jacket, and bot- 
tles of wine, and half a smoked pig, and a coil 
of rope, and a purse. The gallant firemen vol- 
untarily climbed up the pole as far as they 
could, one after another, and then involuntarily 
slid down again exhausted, each one wiping 
off a little more of the grease, until at last the 
lucky one came who profited by his forerunners' 

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ALPENBOSEN AND GOATS MILE 

labours, and struggled to tlie top to snatch the 
smoked pig. After that it was easy. 

Such is success in this unequal world ; the 
man who wipes off the grease seldom gets the 
prize. 

Then followed various games, with tubs of 
water ; and coins fastened to the bottom of a 
huge black frying-pan, to be plucked off with 
the lips ; and pots of flour to be broken with 
sticks ; so that the young lads of the \'illage were 
ducked and blackened and powdered to an un- 
limited extent, amid the hilarious applause of 
the spectators. In the evening there was more 
music, and the peasants danced in the square, 
the women quietly and rather heavily, but the 
men with amazing agility, slapping the soles of 
their shoes with their hands, or turning cart- 
wheels in front of their partners. At dark the 
festivities closed with a display of fireworks; 
there were rockets and bombs and pin-wheels ; 
and the boys had tiny red and blue lights which 
they held until their fingers were burned, just 
as boys do in America ; and there was a gen- 
eral hush of wonder as a particularly brilliant 
rocket swished into the dark sky; and when it 
burst into a rain of serpents, the crowd breathed 
out its delight in a long-drawn " Ah-h-h-h I " 
just as the crowd does everywhere. We might 
easily have imagined ourselves at a Fourth of 

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ALPEXROSEN AND GOATS MILE 

July celebration in Vermont, if it had not been 
for the costumes. 

The men of the Ampezzo Valley have kept 
but little that is peculiar in their dress. Men 
are naturally more progressive than women, and 
therefore less picturesque. The tide of fashion 
has swept them into the international monotony 
of coat and vest and trousers — pretty much 
the same, and equally ugly, all over the world. 
Now and then you may see a short jacket with 
silver buttons, or a pair of knee-breeches ; and 
almost all the youths wear a bunch of feathers 
or a tuft of chamois' hair in their soft srreen 
hats. But the women of the Ampezzo — 
strong, comely, with golden brown complex- 
ions, and often noble faces — are not ashamed 
to dress as their grandmothers did. They wear 
a little round black felt hat with rolled rim 
and two long ribbons hanging down at the back. 
Their hair is carefully braided and coiled, and 
stuck through and through wdth great silver 
pins. A black bodice, fastened with silver 
clasps, is covered in front with the ends of a 
brilliant silk kerchief, laid in many folds 
around the shoulders. The white shirt-sleeves 
are very full and fastened up above the elbow 
with coloured ribbon. If the weather is cool, 
the women wear a short black jacket, with satin 
yoke and high puffed sleeves. But, whatever 

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ALPENBOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

the weather may be, they make no change in the 
large, full dark skirts, almost completely covered 
with immense silk aprons, by preference light 
blue. It is not a remarkably brilliant dress, 
compared with that which one may still see in 
some districts of Norway or Sweden, but upon 
the whole it suits the women of the Ampezzo 
wonderfully. 

For my part, I think that when a woman has 
found a dress that becomes her, it is a waste of 
time to send to Paris for a fashion-plate. 

III. 

When the excitement of the Festa had sub- 
sided, we were free to abandon ourselves to the 
excursions in which the neighborhood of Cortina 
abounds, and to which the guide-book earnestly 
calls every right-minded traveller. A walk 
through the light-green shadows of the larch- 
woods to the tiny lake of Ghedina, where we 
could see all the four dozen trout swimming 
about in the clear water and catching flies ; a 
drive to the Belvedere, where there are super- 
ficial refreshments above and profound grottos 
below; these were trifles, though we enjoyed 
them. But the great mountains encircling us 
on every side, standing out in clear view with 
that distinctness and completeness of vision 
which is one charm of the Dolomites, seemed to 

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ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

summon us to more arduous enterprises. Ac- 
cordingly, the Deacon and I selected the easiest 
one, engaged a guide, and prepared for the 
ascent. 

Monte Nuvolau is not a perilous mountain. I 
am quite sure that at my present time of life I 
should be unwilling to ascend a perilous moun- 
tain unless there were something extraordinarily 
desirable at the top, or remarkably disagreeable 
at the bottom. Mere risk has lost the attrac- 
tions which it once had. As the father of a 
family I felt bound to abstain from going for 
amusement into any place which a Christian 
lady might not visit with propriety and safety. 
Our preparation for Nuvolau, therefore, did not 
consist of ropes, ice-irons, and axes, but simply 
of a lunch and two long sticks. 

Our way led us, in the early morning, through 
the clustering houses of Lacedel, up the broad, 
green slope that faces Cortina on the west, to the 
beautiful Alp Pocol. Nothing could exceed the 
pleasure of such a walk in the cool of the day, 
while the dew still lies on the short, rich grass, 
and the myriads of flowers are at their brightest 
and sweetest. The infinite variety and abun- 
dance of the blossoms is a continual wonder. 
They are sown more thickly than the stars in 
heaven, and the rainbow itself does not show so 
many tints. Here they are mingled like the 

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ALFENBOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

threads of some strange embroidery ; and there 
again nature has massed her colours; so that 
one spot will be all pale blue with innumerable 
forget-me-nots, or dark blue with gentians ; 
another will blush with the delicate pink of the 
Santa Lucia or the deeper red of the clover; 
and another will shine yellow as cloth of gold. 
Over all this opulence of bloom the larks were 
soaring and singing. I never heard so many 
as in the meadows about Cortina. There was 
always a sweet spray of music sprinkling down 
out of the sky, where the singers poised un- 
seen. It was like walking through a shower of 
melody. 

From the Alp Pocol, which is simply a fair, 
lofty pasture, we had our first full view of 
Nuvolau, rising bare and strong, like a huge 
bastion, from the dark fir-woods. Through 
these our way led onward now for seven miles, 
with but a slight ascent. Then turning off to 
the left we began to climb sharply through the 
forest. There we found abundance of the lovely 
Alpine roses, which do not bloom on the lower 
ground. Their colour is a deep, glowing pink, 
and when a Tyrolese girl gives you one of these 
flowers to stick in the band of your hat, you 
may know that you have found favour in her 
eyes. 

Through the wood the cuckoo was calling 

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ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

— the bird which reverses the law of good 
children, and insists on being heard, but not 
seen. 

When the forest was at an end we found our- 
selves at the foot of an alp which sloped steeply 
up to the Five Towers of Averau. The effect of 
these enormous masses of rock, standing out in 
lonely grandeur, like the ruins of some forsaken 
habitation of giants, was tremendous. Seen 
from far below in the valley their form was pic- 
turesque and striking ; but as we sat beside the 
clear, cold spring which gushes out at the foot 
of the largest tower, the Titanic rocks seemed 
to hang in the air above us as if they would 
overawe us into a sense of their majesty. We 
felt it to the full ; yet none the less, but rather 
the more, could we feel at the same time the 
delicate and ethereal beauty of the fringed gen- 
tianella and the pale Alpine lilies scattered on 
the short turf beside us. 

We had now been on foot about three hours 
and a half. The half hour that remained was 
the hardest. Up over loose, broken stones that 
rolled beneath our feet, up over great slopes of 
rough rock, up across little fields of snow where 
we paused to celebrate the Fourth of July with 
a brief snowball fight, up along a narrowing 
ridge with a precipice on either hand, and so 
at last to the summit, 8600 feet above the sea^ 

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ALPENEOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

It is not a great height, but it is a noble 
situation. For Nuvolau is fortunately placed in 
the very centre of the Dolomites, and so com- 
mands a finer view than many a higher moun- 
tain. Indeed, it is not from the highest peaks, 
according to my experience, that one gets the 
grandest prospects, but rather from those of 
middle height, which are so isolated as to give a 
wide circle of vision, and from which one can 
see both the valleys and the summits. Monte 
Rosa itself gives a less imposing view than the 
Gorner Grat. 

It is possible, in this world, to climb too high 
for pleasure. 

But what a panorama Nuvolau gave us on 
that clear, radiant summer morning — a perfect 
circle of splendid sight ! On one side we looked 
down upon the Five Towers ; on the other, a 
thousand feet below, the Alps, dotted with the 
huts of the herdsmen, sloped down into the deep- 
cut vale of Agordo. Opposite to us was the 
enormous mass of Tofana, a pile of gray and 
pink and saffron rock. When we turned the 
other way, we faced a group of mountains as 
ragged as the crests of a line of fir-trees, and 
behind them loomed the solemn head of Pelmo. 
Across the broad vale of the Boite, Antelao 
stood beside Sorapis, like a campanile beside a 
cathedral, and Cristallo towered above the green 

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ALPENEOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

pass of the Three Crosses. Through that open- 
ing we could see the bristling peaks of the Sex- 
tenthal. Sweeping around in a wider circle 
from that point, we saw, beyond the Diirrenstein, 
the snow-covered pile of the Gross-Glockner ; 
the crimson bastions of the Rothwand appeared 
to the north, behind Tofana; then the white 
slopes that hang far away above the Zillerthal ; 
and, nearer, the Geislerspitze, like five fingers 
thrust into the air ; behind that, the distant 
Oetzthaler Mountain, and just a single white 
glimpse of the highest peak of the Ortler by the 
Engadine ; nearer still we saw the vast fortress 
of the Sella group and the red combs of the 
Rosengarten ; Monte Marmolata, the Queen of 
the Dolomites, stood before us revealed from 
base to peak in a bridal dress of snow; and 
southward we looked into the dark rusfoed face 
of La Civetta, rising sheer out of the vale of 
Agordo, where the Lake of Alleghe slept unseen. 
It was a sea of mountains, tossed around us 
into a myriad of motionless waves, and with a 
rainbow of colours spread among their hollows 
and across their crests. The cliffs of rose and 
orange and silver gray, the valleys of deepest 
green, the distant shadows of purple and melt- 
ing blue, and the dazzling white of the scattered 
snow-fields seemed to shift and vary like the 
hues on the inside of a shell. And over all, 

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ALP EN EOS EN AND GOATS MILK 

from peak to peak, the ligbt, feathery clouds 
went drifting lazily and slowly, as if they could 
not leave a scene so fair. 

There is barely room on the top of Nuvolau 
for the stone shelter-hut which a grateful Saxon 
baron has built there as a sort of votive offering 
for the recovery of his health among the moun- 
tains. As we sat within and ate our frugal 
lunch, we were glad that he had recovered his 
health, and glad that he had built the hut, and 
glad that we had come to it. In fact, we could 
almost sympathize in our cold, matter-of-fact 
American way with the sentimental German 
inscription which we read on the wall : 

Von Nuvolau' s hohen Wolkenstufen 

Lass mich, Natur, durch deine Himmel rufen — 

An deiner Brust gesunde, wer da krank ! 

So wird zum Volkerdank niein Sachsendank. 

We refrained, however, from shouting any- 
thing through Nature's heaven, but went lightly 
down, in about three hours, to supper in the Star 
of Gold. 

IV. 

When a stern necessity forces one to leave 
Cortina, there are several ways of departure. 
We selected the main highway for our trunks, 
but for ourselves the Pass of the Three Crosses ; 
the Deacon and the Deaconess in a mountain 
wagon, and I on foot. It should be written 

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ALP EN ROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

as an axiom in the philosophy of travel that the 
easiest way is best for your luggage, and the 
hardest way is best for yourself. 

All along the rough road up to the Pass, we 
had a glorious outlook backward over the Val 
d' Ampezzo, and when we came to the top, we 
looked deep down into the narrow Val Buona 
behind Sorapis. I do not know just when we 
passed the Austrian border, but when we came 
to Lake Misurina we found ourselves in Italy 
again. My friends went on down the valley to 
Landro, but I in my weakness, having eaten of 
the trout of the lake for dinner, could not resist 
the temptation of staying over-night to catch one 
for breakfast. 

It was a pleasant failure. The lake was 
beautiful, lying on top of the mountain like a 
bit of blue sky, surrounded by the peaks of 
Cristallo, Cadino, and the Drei Zinnen. It was 
a happiness to float on such celestial waters and 
cast the hopeful fly. The trout were there ; 
they were large ; I saw them ; they also saw 
me ; but, alas ! I could not raise them. Misu- 
rina is, in fact, what the Scotch call "a dour 
loch," one of those places which are outwardly 
beautiful, but inwardly so demoralized that the 
trout will not rise. 

When we came ashore in the evening, the 
boatman consoled me with the story of a French 

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ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

count who had spent two weeks there fishing, 
and only caught one fish. I had some thoughts 
of staying thirteen days longer, to rival the 
count, but concluded to go on the next morn- 
ing, over Monte Pian and the Cat's Ladder to 
Landro. 

The view from Monte Pian is far less exten- 
sive than that from Nuvolau; but it has the 
advantage of being very near the wild jum- 
ble of the Sexten Dolomites. The Three Shoe- 
makers and a lot more of sharp and ragged 
fellows are close by, on the east ; on the west, 
Cristallo shows its fine little glacier, and Koth- 
wand its crimson cliffs; and southward Misu- 
rina gives to the view a glimpse of water, 
without which, indeed, no view is complete. 
Moreover, the mountain has the merit of being, 
as its name implies, quite gentle. I met the 
Deacon and the Deaconess at the top, they hav- 
ing walked up from Landro. And so we crossed 
the boundary line together again, seven thousand 
feet above the sea, from Italy into Austria. 
There was no custom-house. 

The way down, by the Cat's Ladder, I trav- 
elled alone. The path was very steep and little 
worn, but even on the mountain-side there was 
no danger of losing it, for it had been blazed 
here and there, on trees and stones, with a dash 
of blue paint. This is the work of the in- 

166 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

valuable DO AV — which is, being interpreted, 
the German-Austrian Alpine Club. The more 
one travels in the mountains, the more one learns 
to venerate this beneficent society, for the shel- 
ter-huts and guide-posts it has erected, and the 
paths it has made and marked distinctly with 
various colours. The Germans have a genius 
for thoroughness. My little brown guide-book, 
for example, not only informed me through 
whose back yard I must go to get into a cer- 
tain path, but it told me that in such and such 
a spot I should find quite a good deal (ziem- 
lichviel) of Edelweiss, and in another a small 
echo ; it advised me in one valley to take pro- 
visions and dispense with a guide, and in an- 
other to take a guide and dispense with pro- 
visions, adding varied information in regard to 
beer, which in my case was useless, for I could 
not touch it. To go astray under such auspices 
would be worse than inexcusable. 

Landro we found a very different place from 
Cortina. Instead of having a large church and 
a number of small hotels, it consists entirely of 
one large hotel and a very tiny church. It does 
not lie in a broad, open basin, but in a narrow 
valley, shut in closely by the mountains. The 
hotel, in spite of its size, is excellent, and a few 
steps up the valley is one of the finest views in 
the Dolomites. To the east opens a deep, wild 

167 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

gorge, at the head of which the pinnacles of 
the Drei Zinnen are seen ; to the south the Diir- 
rensee fills the valley from edge to edge, and 
reflects in its pale waters the huge bulk of 
Monte Cristallo. It is such a complete picture, 
so finished, so compact, so balanced, that one 
might think a painter had composed it in a 
moment of inspiration. But no painter ever 
laid such colours on his canvas as those which 
are seen here when the cool evening shadows 
have settled upon the valley, all gray and 
green, while the mountains shine above in rosy 
Alpenglow, as if transfigured with inward fire. 

There is another lake, about three miles north 
of Landro, called the Toblacher See, and there 
I repaired the defeat of Misurina. The trout 
at the outlet, by the bridge, were very small, 
and while the old fisherman was endeavouring 
to catch some of them in his new net, which 
would not work, I pushed my boat up to the 
head of the lake, where the stream came in. 
The green water was amazingly clear, but the 
current kept the fish with their heads up stream ; 
so that one could come up behind them near 
enough for a long cast, without being seen. As 
my fly lighted above them and came gently down 
with the ripple, I saw the first fish turn and rise 
and take it. A motion of the wrist hooked him, 
and he played just as gamely as a trout in my 

168 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

favourite Long Island Pond. How different the 
colour, though, as he came out of the water. 
This fellow was all silvery, with light pink spots 
on his sides. I took seven of his companions, 
in weight some four pounds, and then stopped 
because the evening light was failing. 

How pleasant it is to fish in such a place and 
at such an hour ! The novelty of the scene, the 
grandeur of the landscape, lend a strange charm 
to the sport. But the sport itself is so familiar 
that one feels at home — the motion of the rod, 
the feathery swish of the line, the sight of the 
rising fish — it all brings back a hundred wood- 
land memories, and thoughts of good fishing 
comrades, some far away across the sea, and, 
perhaps, even now sitting around the forest 
camp-fire in INIaine or Canada, and some with 
whom we shall keep company no more until we 
cross the greater ocean into that happy country 
whither they have preceded us. 

V. 

Instead of going straight down the valley by 
the high road, a drive of an hour, to the rail- 
way in the Pusterthal, I walked up over the 
mountains to the east, across the Platzwiesen, 
and so down through the Pragserthal. In one 
arm of the deep fir-clad vale are the Baths of 
Alt-Prags, famous for having cured the Countess 

1G9 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

of G'orz of a violent rheumatism in the fifteenth 
century. It is an antiquated establishment, 
and the guests, who were walking about in the 
fields or drinking their coffee in the balcony, 
as I passed through, had a fifteenth century 
look about them — venerable but slightly ruin- 
ous. But perhaps that was merely a rheumatic 
result. 

All the wagons in the i)lace were engaged. 
It is strange what an aggravating effect this 
state of affairs has u^^on a pedestrian who is 
bent upon riding. I did not recover my de- 
light in the scenery until I had walked about 
five miles farther, and sat down on the grass, 
beside a beautiful spring, to eat my lunch. 

What is there in a little physical rest that has 
such magic to restore the sense of pleasure ? A 
few moments ago nothing pleased you — the 
bloom was gone from the peach ; but now it has 
come back again — you wonder and admire. 
Thus cheerful and contented I trudged up the 
right arm of the valley to the Baths of Neu- 
Prags, less venerable, but apparently more popu- 
lar than Alt-Prags, and on beyond them, through 
the woods, to the superb Pragser-Wildsee, a lake 
whose still waters, now blue as sapphire under 
the clear sky, and now green as emerald under 
gray clouds, sleep encircled by mighty preci- 
pices. Could anything be a greater contrast 

170 



ALPENBOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

with Venice ? There the canals alive with gon- 
dolas, and the open harbour bright with many- 
coloured sails ; here, the hidden lake, silent and 
lifeless, save when, as Wordsworth wrote ; — 

" A leaping- fish 
Sends through the tarn a lonely cheer." 

Tired, and a little foot-sore, after nine hours' 
walking, I came into the big railway hotel at 
Toblach that night. There I met my friends 
again, and parted from them and the Dolomites 
the next day, with regret. For they were 
" stepping westward ; " but in order to get to 
the Gross- Venediger I must make a detour to 
the east, through the Pusterthal, and come up 
through the valley of the Isel to the great chain 
of mountains called the Hohe Tauern. 

At the junction of the Isel and the Drau lies 
the quaint little city of Lienz, with its two 
castles — the square, double-towered one in the 
town, now transformed into the offices of the 
municipality, and the huge mediaeval one on a 
hill outside, now used as a damp restaurant and 
dismal beer-cellar. I lingered at Lienz for a 
couple of days, in the ancient hostelry of the 
Post. The hallways were vaulted like a cloister, 
the walls were three feet thick, the kitchen was 
in the middle of the house on the second floor, 
so that I looked into it every time I came from 

171 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

my room, and ordered dinner direct from the 
cook. But, so far from being displeased with 
these peculiarities, I rather liked the flavour of 
them ; and then, in addition, the landlady's 
daughter, who was managing the house, was a 
person of most engaging manners, and there 
was trout and grayling fishing in a stream near 
by, and the neighbouring church of Dolsach 
contained the beautiful picture of the Holy 
Family, which Franz Defregger painted for his 
native village. 

The peasant women of Lienz have one very 
striking feature in their dress — a black felt hat 
with a broad, stiff brim and a high crown, 
smaller at the top than at the base. It looks 
a little like the traditional head-gear of the 
Pilgrim Fathers, exaggerated. There is a so- 
lemnity about it which is fatal to feminine 
beauty. 

I went by the post-wagon, with two slow 
horses and ten passengers, fifteen miles up 
the Iselthal, to Windisch-Matrei, a village 
whose early history is lost in the mist of an- 
tiquity, and whose streets are pervaded with 
odours which must have originated at the same 
time with the village. One wishes that they 
also might have shared the fate of its early his- 
tory. But it is not fair to expect too much of a 
small place, and Windisch-Matrei has certainly 

172 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

a beautiful situation and a good inn. There I 
took my guide — a wiry and companionable little 
man, whose occupation in the lower world was 
that of a maker and merchant of hats — and set 
out for the Pragerhiitte, a shelter on the side of 
the Gross-Venediger. 

The path led under the walls of the old Castle 
of Weissenstein, and then in steep curves up 
the cliff which blocks the head of the valley, 
and along a cut in the face of the rock, into 
the steep, narrow Tauernthal, which divides the 
Glockner group from the Venediger. How 
entirely different it was from the region of the 
Dolomites ! There the variety of colour was 
endless and the change incessant ; here it was 
all green grass and trees and black rocks, with 
glimpses of snow. There the highest mountains 
were in sight constantly ; here they could only 
be seen from certain points in the valley. 
There the streams played but a small part in 
the landscape ; here they were prominent, the 
main river raging and foaming through the 
gorge below, while a score of waterfalls leaped 
from the cliffs on either side and dashed down 
to join it. 

The peasants, men, women and children, were 
cutting the grass in the perpendicular fields ; the 
woodmen were trimming and felling the trees in 
the fir-forests ; the cattle-tenders were driving 

173 



ALPENBOSEN AND GOATS MILK 

their cows along tlie stony path, or herding 
them far up on the hillsides. It was a lonely 
scene, and yet a busy one ; and all along the 
road was written the history of the perils 
and hardships of the life which now seemed 
so peaceful and picturesque under the summer 
sunlight. 

These heavy crosses, each covered with a 
narrow, pointed roof and decorated with a 
rude picture, standing beside the path, or on the 
bridge, or near the mill — what do they mean ? 
They mark the place where a human life has 
been lost, or where some poor peasant has been 
delivered from a great peril, and has set up a 
memorial of his gratitude. 

Stop, traveller, as you pass by, and look at 
the pictures. They have little more of art than 
a child's drawing on a slate ; but they will teach 
you what it means to earn a living in these 
mountains. They tell of the danger that lurks 
on the steep slopes of grass, where the mowers 
have to go down with ropes around their waists, 
and in the beds of the streams where the floods 
sweep through in the spring, and in the forests 
where the great trees fall and crush men like 
flies, and on the icy bridges where a slip is fatal, 
and on the high passes where the winter snow- 
storm blinds the eyes and benumbs the limbs of 
the traveller, and under the cliffs from which 

174 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILE 

avalanches slide and rocks roll. They show 
you men and women falling from wagons, and 
swept away by waters, and overwhelmed in land- 
slips. In the corner of the picture you may see 
a peasant with the black cross above his head — 
that means death. Or perhaps it is deliverance 
that the tablet commemorates — and then you 
will see the miller kneeling beside his mill with 
a flood rushing down upon it, or a peasant kneel- 
ing in his harvest-field under an inky-black 
cloud, or a landlord beside his inn in flames, or 
a mother praying beside her sick children ; and 
above appears an angel, or a saint, or the Virgin 
with her Child. 

Read the inscriptions, too, in their quaint 
German. Some of them are as humourous as 
the epitaphs in New England graveyards. I 
remember one which ran like this : 

Here lies Elias Queer, 

Killed in his sixtieth year ; 

Scarce had he seen the lig^ht of day 

When a wagon-wheel crushed his life away. 

And there is another famous one which says : 

Here perished the honoured and virtuous 

maiden, 

G. V. 

This tablet was erected by her only son. 

But for the most part a glance at these 
Mai'terl unci Taferl^ which are so frequent on 

175 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

all tlie mountain-roacls of the Tyrol, will give 
you a strange sense of the real pathos of human 
life. If you are a Catholic, you will not refuse 
their request to say a prayer for the departed ; if 
you are a Protestant, at least it will not hurt you 
to say one for those who still live and suffer and 
toil among such dangers. 

After we had walked for four hours up the 
Tauernthal, we came to the Matreier-Tauern- 
haus, an inn which is kej)t open all the year for 
the shelter of travellers over the high pass that 
crosses the mountain-range at this point, from 
north to south. There we dined. It was a 
bare, rude place, but the dish of juicy trout was 
garnished with flowers, each fish holding a big 
pansy in its mouth, and as the maid set them 
down before me she wished me " a good 
appetite," with the hearty old-fashioned Tyrolese 
courtesy which still survives in these remote 
valleys. It is pleasant to travel in a land where 
the manners are plain and good. If you meet a 
peasant on the road he says, " God greet you ! " 
if you give a child a couple of kreuzers he folds 
his hands and says, " God reward you ! " and 
the maid who lights you to bed says, " Good- 
night, I hope you will sleep well ! " 

Two hours more of walking brought us 
through Ausser-gsclil(3ss and Inner-gscliloss, two 
groups of herdsmen's huts, tenanted only in 

176 



if -k ft 




ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

summer, at the liead of the Tauernthal. Mid- 
way between them lies a little chapel, cut into 
the solid rock for shelter from the avalanches. 
This lofty vale is indeed rightly named ; for it is 
shut off from the rest of the world. The portal 
is a cliff down which the stream rushes in foam 
and thunder. On either hand rises a mountain 
wall. Within, the pasture is fresh and green, 
sprinkled with Alpine roses, and the pale river 
flows swiftly down between the rows of dark 
wooden houses. At the head of the vale towers 
the Gross- Venediger, with its glaciers and snow- 
fields dazzling white against the deep blue 
heaven. The murmur of the stream and the 
tinkle of the cow-bells and the jodelling of the 
herdsmen far up the slopes, make the music for 
the scene. 

The path from Gschloss leads straight up to 
the foot of the dark pyramid of the Kesselkopf, 
and then in steep endless zig-zags along the edge 
of the great glacier. I saw, at first, the pin- 
nacles of ice far above me, breaking over the 
face of the rock ; then, after an hour's breath- 
less climbing, I could look right into the blue 
crevasses ; and at last, after another hour over 
soft snow-fields and broken rocks, I was at 
the Pragerhut, perched on the shoulder of the 
mountain, looking down upon the huge river 

of ice. 

177 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

It was a magnificent view under the clear 
light of evening. Here in front of us, the Vene- 
diger with all his brother-mountains clustered 
about him ; behind us, across the Tauern, the 
mighty chain of the Glockner against the east- 
ern sky. 

This is the frozen world. Here the Winter, 
driven back into his stronghold, makes his last 
stand against the Summer, in perpetual conflict, 
retreating by day to the mountain-peak, but 
creeping back at night in frost and snow to re- 
gain a little of his lost territory, until at last the 
Summer is wearied out, and the Winter sweeps 
down again to claim the whole valley for his 
own. 

VI. 

In the Pragerhut I found mountain comfort. 
There were bunks along the wall of the guest- 
room, with plenty of blankets. There was good 
store of eggs, canned meats, and nourishing 
black bread. The friendly goats came bleating 
up to the door at nightfall to be milked. And 
in charge of all this luxury there was a cheerful 
peasant-wife with her brown-eyed daughter, to 
entertain travellers. It was a pleasant sight to 
see them, as they sat down to their supper with 
my guide ; all three bowed their heads and said 
their " grace before meat," the guide repeating 
the longer prayer and the mother and daughter 

178 




> 



A O 



^■4 ^ 



OO 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

coming in with the responses. I went to bed 
with a warm and comfortable feeling about my 
heart. It was a good ending for the day. In 
the morning, if the weather remained clear, the 
alarm-clock was to wake us at three for the as- 
cent to the summit. 

But can it be three o'clock already ? The 
gibbous moon still hangs in the sky and casts a 
feeble light over the scene. Then up and away 
for the final climb. How rough the path is 
among the black rocks along the ridge ! Now 
we strike out on the gently rising glacier, across 
the crust of snow, picking our way among the 
crevasses, with the rope tied about our waists for 
fear of a fall. How cold it is ! But now the 
gray light of morning dawns, and now the 
beams of sunrise shoot up behind the Glockner, 
and now the sun itself glitters into sight. The 
snow grows softer as we toil up the steep, 
narrow comb between the Gross- Venediger and 
his neighbour the Klein-Venediger. At last we 
have reached our journey's end. See, the whole 
of the Tyrol is spread out before us in wondrous 
splendour, as we stand on this snowy ridge ; and 
at our feet the Schlatten glacier, like a long, 
white snake, curls down into the valley. 

There is still a little peak above us ; an over- 
hanging horn of snow which the wind has built 
against the mountain-top. I would like to stand 

179 



ALPENROSEN AND GOATS MILK 

there, just for a moment. The guide protests 
it would be dangerous, for if the snow should 
break it would be a fall of a thousand feet to 
the glacier on the northern side. But let us 
dare the few steps upward. How our feet sink ! 
Is the snow slipping ? Look at the glacier ! 
What is happening? It is wrinkling and curl- 
ing backward on us, serpent-like. Its head rises 
far above us. All its icy crests are clashing to- 
gether like the ringing of a thousand bells. We 
are falling ! I fling out my arm to grasp the 
guide — and awake to find myself clutching a 
pillow in the bunk. The alarm-clock is ringing 
fiercely for three o'clock. A driving snow-storm 
is beating against the window. The ground is 
white. Peer through the clouds as I may, I 
cannot even catch a glimpse of the vanished 
Gross- Venediger. 

180 



AU LARGE 



Wherever we strayed, the same tranquil leisure enfolded us ; day fol- 
lowed day in att order iifibroken and peaceful as the unfolding of the 
flowers a7id the silent march of the stars. Time no longer ra?t like 
the few sands in a delicate hour-glass held by a fragile human hand, 
but like a majestic river fed by fathomless seas. . . , We gave our- 
selves up to tJie sweetness of that immeasured life, withoid thought of 
yesterday or to-morrow ; we drank the ctip to-day held to our lips, and 
knew that so long as we were athirst that draught would not be denied 
us. — Hamilton W. Mabie: Under the Trees. 




*y*5-. 



AU LARGE 

There is magic in words, surely, and many a 
treasure besides Ali Baba's is unlocked with a 
verbal key. Some charm in the mere sound, 
some association with the pleasant past, touches 
a secret spring. The bars are down ; the gate 
is open ; you are made free of all the fields of 
memory and fancy — by a word. 

Au large ! Envoy ez au large I is the cry of 
the Canadian voyageurs as they thrust their 
paddles against the shore and push out on the 
broad lake for a journey through the wilderness. 
Au large I is what the man in the bow shouts 
to the man in the stern when the birch canoe is 
running down the rapids, and the water grows 
too broken, and the rocks too thick, along the 
river-bank. Then the frail bark must be driven 
out into the very centre of the wild current, into 
the midst of danger to find safety, dashing, like 
a frightened colt, along the smooth, sloping lane 
bordered by white fences of foam. 

Au large I When I hear that word, I hear 
also the crisp waves breaking on pebbly beaches, 

183 



AU LARGE 

and the big wind rushing tlirough innumerable 
trees, and the roar of headlong rivers leaping 
down the rocks. I see long reaches of water 
sparkling in the sun, or sleeping still between 
evergreen walls beneath a cloudy sky ; and the 
gleam of white tents on the shore ; and the glow 
of firelight dancing through the woods. I smell 
the delicate vanishing perfume of forest flowers ; 
and the incense of rolls of birch-bark, crinkling 
and flaring in the camp-fire ; and the soothing 
odour of balsam-boughs piled deep for woodland 
})eds — the veritable and only genuine perfume 
of the land of Nod. The thin shining veil of 
the Northern lights waves and fades and bright- 
ens over the night sky ; at the sound of the word, 
as at the ringing of a bell, the curtain rises. 
Scene, the Forest of Arden ; enter a party of 
hunters. 

It was in the Lake St. John country, two hun- 
dred miles north of Quebec, that I first heard 
my rustic incantation ; and it seemed to fit the 
resfion as if it had been made for it. This is 
not a little pocket wilderness like the Adiron- 
dacks, but something vast and primitive. You 
do not cross it, from one railroad to another, by 
a line of hotels. You go into it by one river as 
far as you like, or dare ; and then you turn and 
come back again by another river, making haste 
to get out before your provisions are exhausted. 

184 







C 



AU LARGE 

The lake itself is the cradle of the mighty Sa- 
guenay, an inland sea, thirty miles across and 
nearly round, lying in the broad limestone basin 
north of the Laurentian Mountains. The south- 
ern and eastern shores have been settled for 
twenty or thirty years ; and the rich farm-land 
yields abundant crops of wheat and oats and 
potatoes to a community of industrious hahi- 
tants, who live in little modern villages named 
after the saints and gathered as closely as pos- 
sible around big gray stone churches, and thank 
the good Lord that he has given them a climate 
at least four or five degrees milder than Quebec. 
A railroad, built through a region of granite 
hills which will never be tamed to the plough, 
links this outlying settlement to the civilized 
world ; and at the end of the railroad the Hotel 
Roberval, standing on a hill above the lake, of- 
fers to the pampered tourist electric lights, and 
spring-beds, and a wide veranda from which he 
can look out across the water into the face of the 
wilderness. 

Northward and westward the interminable 
forest rolls away to the shores of Hudson's Bay 
and the frozen wastes of Labrador. It is an 
immense solitude. A score of rivers empty into 
the lake ; little ones like the Pikouabi and La 
Pipe, and middle-sized ones like the Ouiatch- 
ouan and La Belle Eiviere, and big ones like 

185 



AU LARGE 

the Mistassini and the Peribonca ; and each of 
these streams is the clue to a labyrinth of woods 
and waters. The canoe-man who follows it far 
enough will find himself among lakes that are 
not named on any map ; he will camp on virgin 
ground, and make the acquaintance of unsophis- 
ticated fish; perhaps even, like the maiden in 
the fairy-tale, he will meet with the little bear, 
and the middle-sized bear, and the great big 
bear. 

Damon and I set out on such an expedition 
shortly after the nodding lilies in the Connecti- 
cut meadows had rung the noon-tide bell of 
summer, and when the raspberry bushes along 
the line of the Quebec and Lake St. John Rail- 
way had spread their afternoon collation for 
birds and men. At Eoberval we found our four 
guides waiting for us, and the steamboat took us 
all across the lake to the Island House, at the 
northeast corner. There we embarked our tents 
and blankets, our pots and pans, and bags of 
flour and potatoes and bacon and other delica- 
cies, our rods and guns, and last, but not least, 
our axes (without which man in the woods is 
a helpless creature), in two birch-bark canoes, 
and went flying down the Grande Decharge. 

It is a wonderful place, this outlet of Lake 
St. John. All the floods of twenty rivers are 
gathered here, and break forth through a net of 

186 



AU LARGE 

islands in a double stream, divided by tbe broad 
He d'Alma, into tbe Grande Decharge and the 
Petite Decharge. The southern outlet is small, 
and flows somewhat more quietly at first. But 
the northern outlet is a huge confluence and 
tumult of waters. You see the set of the tide 
far out in the lake, sliding, driving, crowding, 
hurrying in with smooth currents and swirling 
eddies, toward the corner of escape. By the 
rocky cove where the Island House peers out 
through the fir-trees, the current already has a 
perceptible slope. It begins to boil over hidden 
stones in the middle, and gurgles at projecting 
points of rock. A mile farther down there is 
an islet where the stream quickens, chafes, and 
breaks into a rapid. Behind the islet it drops 
down in three or four foaming steps. On the 
outside it makes one long, straight rush into a 
line of white-crested standing waves. 

As we approached, the steersman in the first 
canoe stood up to look over the course. The sea 
was high. Was it too high? The canoes were 
heavity loaded. Could they leap the waves? 
There was a quick talk among the guides as we 
slipped along, undecided which way to turn. 
Then the question seemed to settle itself, as most 
of these woodland questions do, as if some silent 
force of Nature had the casting-vote. " Sautez^ 
sautez ! " cried Ferdinand, " envoyez an large 1 " 

187 



AU LARGE 

In a moment we were sliding clown the smooth 
back of the rapid, directly toward the first big 
wave. The rocky shore went by us like a dream ; 
we conld feel the motion of the earth whirling 
around with us. The crest of the billow in front 
curled above the bow of the canoe. " A7'ret\ 
aTrGt\ doucement I " A swift stroke of the 
paddle checked the canoe, quivering and pran- 
cing like a horse suddenly reined in. The wave 
ahead, as if surprised, sank and flattened for a 
second. The canoe leaped through the edge of 
it, swerved to one side, and ran gayly down along 
the fringe of the line of billows, into quieter 
water. 

Every one feels the exhilaration of such a 
descent. I know a lady who almost cried with 
fright when she went down lier first rapid, but 
before the voyage was ended she was saying : — 

" Count that day lost whose low, descending sun 
Sees no fall leaped, no foaming rapid run." 

It takes a touch of danger to bring out the joy 
of life. 

Our guides began to shout, and joke each 
other, and praise their canoes. 

"You grazed that villain rock at the corner," 
said Jean ; " did n't you know where it was ? " 

"Yes, after I touched it," cried Ferdinand; 
" but you took in a bucket of water, and I sup- 

188 



AU LARGE 

pose your ni'sieit' is sitting on a piece of the 
river. Is it not ? " 

This seemed to us all a very merry jest, 
and we laughed with the same inextinguishable 
laughter which a practical joke, according to 
Homer, always used to raise in Olympus. It is 
one of the charms of life in the woods that it 
brings back the high spirits of boyhood and 
renews the youth of the world. Plain fun, like 
plain food, tastes good out-of-doors. Nectar is 
the sweet sap of a maple-tree. Ambrosia is 
only another name for well-turned flapjacks. 
And all the immortals, sitting around the table 
of golden cedar-slabs, make merry when the 
clumsy Hephaistos, ];)laying the part of Hebe, 
stumbles over a root and upsets the plate of 
cakes into the fire. 

The first little rapid of the Grande Decharge 
was only the beginning. Half a mile below we 
could see the river disappear between two points 
of rock. There was a roar of conflict, and a 
golden mist hanging in the air, like the smoke 
of battle. All along the place where the river 
sank from sight, dazzling heads of foam were 
flashing up and falling back, as if a horde of 
water-sprites were vainly trying to fight their 
way up to the lake. It was the top of the 
grande chute, a wild succession of falls and 
pools where no boat could live for a moment. 

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AU LABGE 

We ran down toward it as far as the water 
served, and then turned off among the rocks on 
the left hand, to take the portage. 

These portages are among the troublesome 
delights of a journey in the wilderness. To the 
guides they mean hard work, for everything, 
including the boats, must be carried on their 
backs. The march of the canoes on dry land is 
a curious sight. Andrew Marvell described it 
two hundred years ago when he was poetizing 
beside the little river Wharfe in Yorkshire : — 

" And now the salmon-fishers moist 
Their leathern boats begin to hoist, 
And like antipodes in shoes 
Have shod their heads in their canoes, 
How tortoise-like, but none so slow, 
These rational amphibii go ! " 

But the sportsman carries nothing, except per- 
haps his gun, or his rod, or his photographic 
camera ; and so for him the portage is only a 
pleasant opportunity to stretch his legs, cramped 
by sitting in the canoe, and to renew his ac- 
quaintance with the pretty things that are in the 
woods. 

We sauntered along the trail, Damon and I, 
as if school were out and would never keep 
again. How fresh and tonic the forest seemed 
as we plunged into its bath of shade. There 
were our old friends the cedars, with their roots 
twisted across the path ; and the white birches, 

190 




•a 

a 



AU LARGE 

SO trim in youtli and so shaggy in age ; and the 
sociable spruces and balsams, crowding close 
together, and interlacing their arms overhead. 
There were the little springs, trickling through 
the moss ; and the slippery logs laid across the 
marshy places ; and the fallen trees, cut in two 
and pushed aside, — for this was a much-trav- 
elled portage. 

Around the open spaces, the tall meadow-rue 
stood dressed in robes of fairy white and green. 
The blue banners of the fleur-de-lis were planted 
beside the springs. In shady corners, deeper in 
the wood, the fragrant pyrola lifted its scape of 
clustering bells, like a lily of the valley wan- 
dered to the forest. When we came to the end 
of the portage, a perfume like that of cyclamens 
in Tyrolean meadows welcomed us, and search- 
ing among the loose grasses by the water-side 
we found the exquisite purple spikes of the les- 
ser fringed orchis, loveliest and most ethereal of 
all the woodland flowers save one. And what 
one is that ? Ah, my friend, it is your own 
particular favourite, the flower, by whatever 
name you call it, that you plucked long ago 
when you were walking in the forest with your 
sweetheart, — 

" Im wunderschonen Monat Mai 
Als alle Knospen sprangen." 

We launched our canoes again on the great 

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AU LABGE 

pool at the foot of the first fall, — a broad 
sweep of water a mile long and half a mile wide, 
full of eddies and strong currents, and covered 
with drifting foam. There was the old camp- 
ground on the point, where I had tented so 
often with my lady Greygown, fishing for oua- 
naniche, the famous land-locked salmon of Lake 
St. John. And there were the big fish, showing 
their back fins as they circled lazily around in 
the eddies, as if they were waiting to play with 
us. But the goal of our day's journey was 
miles away, and we swept along with the stream, 
now through a rush of quick water, boiling and 
foaming, now through a still place like a lake, 
now through 

" Fairy crowds 
Of islands, that together lie, 
As quietly as spots of sky 
Among the evening clouds." 

The beauty of the shores was infinitely varied, 
and unspoiled by any sign of the presence of 
man. We met no company except a few king- 
fishers, and a pair of gulls who had come up 
from the sea to spend the summer, and a large 
flock of wild ducks, which the guides call " Bet- 
seys," as if they were all of the gentler sex. In 
such a big family of girls we supposed that a 
few would not be missed, and Damon bagged 
two of the tenderest for our supper. 

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AU LABGE 

In the still water at the moutli of the Riviere 
Mistook, just above the Rapide aux Cedres, we 
went ashore on a level wooded bank to make 
our first camp and cook our dinner. Let me 
try to sketch our men as they are busied about 
the fire. 

They are all French Canadians of unmixed 
blood, descendants of the men who came to New 
France with Samuel de Champlain, that incom- 
parable old woodsman and life-long lover of the 
wilderness. Ferdinand Larouche is our chef — 
there must be a head in every party for the sake 
of harmony — and his assistant is his brother 
Francois. Ferdinand is a stocky little fellow, a 
" sawed off " man, not more than five feet two 
inches tall, but every inch of him is pure vim. 
He can carry a big canoe or a hundred-weight 
of camp stuff over a mile portage without stop- 
ping to take breath. He is a capital canoe-man, 
with prudence enough to ballast his courage, 
and a fair cook, with plenty of that quality 
which is wanting in the ordinary cook of com- 
merce — good hmnoLir. Always joking, whis- 
tling, singing, he brings the atmosphere of a 
perpetual holiday along with him. His weather- 
worn coat covers a heart full of music. He has 
two talents which make him a marked man 
among his comrades. He plays the fiddle to the 
delight of all the balls and weddings through 

193 



AU LABGE 

the country-side ; and he speaks English to the 
admiration and envy of the other guides. But 
like all men of genius he is modest about his 
accomplishments. " H'l not spik good h'Engiish 
— h'only for camp — fishin', cookin', dhe voyage 
— h'all dhose t'ings." The aspirates puzzle him. 
He can get through a slash of fallen timber 
more easily than a sentence full of " this " and 
"that." Sometimes he expresses his meaning 
queerly. He was telling me once about his 
farm, " not far off here, in dhe Riviere au 
Cochon, river of dhe pig, you call 'im. H'l am 
a widow, got five sons, t'ree of dhem are girls." 
But he usually ends by falling back into French, 
which, he assures you, you speak to perfection, 
" much better than the Canadians ; the French 
of Paris in short — M'sieu' has been in Paris? " 
Such courtesy is born in the blood, and is irre- 
sistible. You cannot help returning the compli- 
ment and assuring him that his English is 
remarkable, good enough for all practical pur- 
poses, better than any of the other guides can 
speak. And so it is. 

Francois is a little taller, a little thinner, 
and considerably quieter than Ferdinand. He 
laughs loyally at his brother's jokes, and sings 
the response to his songs, and wields a good 
second paddle in the canoe. 

Jean — commonly called Johnny — Morel is 

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AU LARGE 

a tall, strong man of fifty, with a bushy red 
beard that would do credit to a pirate. But 
when you look at him more closely, you see 
that he has a clear, kind blue eye and a most 
honest, friendly face under his slouch hat. He 
has travelled these woods and waters for thirty 
years, so that he knows the way through them 
by a thousand familiar signs, as well as you 
know the streets of the city. He is our path- 
finder. 

The bow paddle in his canoe is held by his 
son Joseph, a lad not quite fifteen, but already 
as tall, and almost as strong as a man. " He 
is yet of the youth," said Johnny, "and he 
knows not the affairs of the camp. This trip 
is for him the first — it is his school — but I 
hope he will content you. He is good, M'sieu', 
and of the strongest for his age. I have edu- 
cated already two sons in the bow of my canoe. 
The oldest has gone to Pennsylvanie ; he peels 
the bark there for tlie tanning of leather. The 
second had the misfortune of breaking his leg, 
so that he can no longer kneel to paddle. He 
has descended to the making of shoes. Joseph 
is my third pupil. And I have still a younger 
one at home waiting to come into my school." 

A touch of family life like that is always re- 
freshing, and doubly so in the wilderness. For 
what is fatherhood at its best, everywhere, but 

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AU LARGE 

the training of good men to take tlie teacher's 
place when his work is done ? Some day, when 
Johnny's rheumatism has made his joints a little 
stiffer and his eyes have lost something of their 
keenness, he will be wielding the second paddle 
in the boat, and going out only on the short and 
easy trips. It will be young Joseph that steers 
the canoe through the dangerous places, and 
carries the heaviest load over the portages, and 
leads the way on the long journeys. 

It has taken me longer to describe our men 
than it took them to prepare our frugal meal : 
a pot of tea, the woodsman's favourite drink, (I 
never knew a good guide that would not go 
without whiskey rather than without tea,) a 
few slices of toast and juicy rashers of bacon, 
a kettle of boiled potatoes, and a relish of 
crackers and cheese. We were in a hurry to 
be off for an afternoon's fishing, three or four 
miles down the river, at the He Maligne. 

The island is well named, for it is the most 
perilous place on the river, and has a record of 
disaster and death. The scattered waters of 
the Discharge are drawn together here into 
one deep, narrow, powerful stream, flowing be- 
tween gloomy shores of granite. In mid-channel 
the wicked island shows its scarred and bristling 
head, like a giant ready to dispute the passage. 
The river rushes straight at the rocky brow, 

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AU LARGE 

splits into two currents, and raves away on both 
sides of the island in a double chain of furious 
falls and rapids. 

In these wild waters we fished with immense 
delight and fair success, scrambling down among 
the huge rocks along the shore, and joining the 
excitement of an Alpine climb with the placid 
pleasures of angling. At nightfall we were at 
home again in our camp, with half a score of 
ouananiche, weighing from one to four pounds 
each. 

Our next day's journey was long and varie- 
gated. A portage of a mile or two across the 
He d'Alma, with a cart to haul our canoes and 
stuff, brought us to the Little Discharge, down 
which we floated for a little way, and then 
hauled through the village of St. Joseph to the 
foot of the Carcajou, or Wildcat Falls. A mile 
of quick water was soon passed, and we came to 
the junction of the Little Discharge with the 
Grand Discharge at the point where the pictur- 
esque club-house stands in a grove of birches be- 
side the big Vache Caille Falls. It is lively work 
crossing the pool here, when the water is high 
and the canoes are heavy ; but we went through 
the labouring seas safely, and landed some dis- 
tance below, at the head of the Rapide Gervais, 
to eat our lunch. The water was too rough to 
run down with loaded boats, so Damon and I had 

197 



AU LABGE 

to walk about three miles along the river-bank, 
while the men went down with the canoes. 

On our way beside the rapids, Damon geolo- 
gized, finding the marks of ancient glaciers, and 
bits of iron-ore, and pockets of sand full of in- 
finitesimal garnets, and specks of gold washed 
from the primitive granite ; and I fished, pick- 
ing up a pair of ouananiche in foam-covered 
nooks among the rocks. The swift water was 
almost passed when we embarked again and ran 
down the last slope into a long deadwater. 

The shores, at first bold and rough, covered 
with dense thickets of second-growth timber, 
now became smoother and more fertile. Scat- 
tered farms, with square, unpainted houses, and 
long, thatched barns, began to creep over the 
hills toward the river. There was a hamlet, 
called St. Charles, with a rude little church and 
a campanile of logs. The cure, robed in decent 
black and wearing a tall silk hat of the vintage 
of 1860, sat on the veranda of his trim pres- 
bytery, looking down upon us, like an image 
of propriety smiling at Bohemianism. Other 
craft appeared on the river. A man and his 
wife paddling an old dugout, with half a dozen 
children packed in amidships ; a crew of lum- 
bermen, in a sharp-nosed bateau, picking up 
stray logs along the banks ; a couple of boat- 
loads of young people returning merrily from a 

198 




u 



> 



H 



AU LARGE 

holiday visit ; a party of berry-pickers in a flat- 
bottomed skiff ; all the life of the country-side 
was in evidence on the river. We felt quite as 
if we had been " in the swim " of society, when 
at length we reached the point where the 
Riviere des Aunes came tumbling down a 
hundred-foot ladder of broken black rocks. 
There we pitched our tents in a strip of meadow 
by the water-side, where we could have the 
sound of the falls for a slumber-song all night 
and the whole river for a bath at sunrise. 

A sparkling draught of crystal weather was 
poured into our stirrup-cup in the morning, 
as we set out for a drive of fifteen miles across 
country to the Riviere a I'Ours, a tributary of 
the crooked, unnavigable river of Alders. The 
canoes and luggage were loaded on a couple of 
charrettes^ or two-wheeled carts. But for us 
and the guides there were two quatre-roues^ the 
typical vehicles of the century, as characteristic 
of Canada as the carriole is of Norway. It is a 
two-seated buckboard, drawn by one horse, and 
the back seat is covered with a hood like an old- 
fashioned poke bonnet. The road is of clay and 
always rutty. It runs level for a while, and 
then jumps up a steep ridge and down again, or 
into a deep gully and out again. The hahitanfs 
idea of good driving is to let his horse slide 
down the hill and gallop up. This imparts a 

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AU LARGE 

spasmodic quality to tlie motion, like Carlyle's 
style. 

The native houses are strung along the road. 
The modern pattern has a convex angle in the 
roof, and dormer-windows ; it is a rustic adap- 
tation of the Mansard. The antique j)attern, 
which is far more picturesque, has a concave 
curve in the roof, and the eaves project like eye- 
brows, shading the flatness of the face. Paint is 
a rarity. The prevailing colour is the soft gray 
of weather-beaten wood. Sometimes, in the 
better class of houses, a gallery is built across 
the front and around one side, and a square of 
garden is fenced in, with dahlias and hollyhocks 
and marigolds, and perhaps a struggling rose- 
bush, and usually a small patch of tobacco grow- 
ing in one corner. Once in a long while you 
may see a Balm of Gilead tree, or a clump of 
sapling poplars, planted near the door. 

How much better it would have been if the 
farmer had left a few of the noble forest-trees to 
shade his house. But then, when the farmer 
came into the wilderness he was not a farmer, 
he was first of all a woodchopper. He regarded 
the forest as a stubborn enemy in possession 
of his land. He attacked it with fire and axe 
and exterminated it, instead of keeping a few 
captives to hold their green umbrellas over 
his head when at last his grain fields should be 

200 



AU LABGE 

smiling around him and lie should sit down 
on his doorstep to smoke a pipe of home-grown 
tobacco. 

In the time of adversity one should prepare 
for prosperity. I fancy there are a good many 
people unconsciously repeating the mistake of 
the Canadian farmer — chopping down all the 
native growths of life, clearing the ground of all 
the useless pretty things that seem to cumber 
it, sacrificing everything to utility and success. 
We fell the last green tree for the sake of rais- 
ing an extra hill of potatoes ; and never stop to 
think what an ugly, barren place we may have 
to sit in while we eat them. The ideals, the 
attachments — yes, even the dreams of youth are 
worth saving. For the artificial tastes with 
which age tries to make good their loss grow 
very slowly and cast but a slender shade. 

Most of the Canadian farm-houses have their 
ovens out-of-doors. We saw them everywhere ; 
rounded edifices of clay, raised on a foundation 
of logs, and usually covered with a pointed 
roof of boards. They looked like little family 
chapels — and so they were ; shrines where the 
ritual of the good housewife was celebrated, and 
the gift of daily bread, having been honestly 
earned, was thankfully received. 

At one house we noticed a curious fragment 
of domestic economy. Half a pig was sus- 

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AU LARGE 

pended over the chimney, and the smoke of the 
summer fire was turned to account in curing the 
winter's meat. I guess the children of that fam- 
ily had a peculiar fondness for the parental roof- 
tree. We saw them making mud-pies in the 
road, and imagined that they looked lovingly 
up at the pendent porker, outlined against 
the sky, — a sign of promise, prophetic of 
bacon. 

About noon the road passed beyond the region 
of habitation into a barren land, where blue- 
berries were the only crop, and partridges took 
the place of chickens. Through this rolling 
gravelly plain, sparsely wooded and glowing with 
the tall magenta bloom of the fireweed, we drove 
toward the mountains, until the road went to 
seed and we could follow it no longer. Then we 
took to the water and began to pole our canoes 
up the Eiver of the Bear. It was a clear, amber- 
coloured stream, not more than ten or fifteen 
yards wide, running swift and strong, over beds 
of sand and rounded pebbles. The canoes 
went wallowing and plunging up the narrow 
channel, between thick banks of alders, like 
clumsy sea-monsters. All the grace with which 
they move under the strokes of the paddle, in 
large waters, was gone. They looked uncouth 
and predatory, like a pair of seals that I once 
saw swimming far up the river Restigouche in 

202 



AU LARGE 

chase of fish. From the bow of each canoe the 
landing-net stuck out as a symbol of destruction 
— after the fashion of the Dutch admiral who 
nailed a broom to his masthead. But it would 
have been impossible to sweep the trout out of 
that little river by any fair method of angling, 
for there were millions of them ; not large, but 
lively, and brilliant, and fat ; they leaped in 
every bend of the stream. We trailed our flies, 
and made quick casts here and there, as we went 
along. It was fishing on the wing. And when 
we pitched our tents in a hurry at nightfall on 
the low shore of Lac Sale, among the bushes 
where firewood was scarce and there were no 
sapins for the beds, we were comforted for the 
poorness of the camp-ground by the excellence 
of the trout supper. 

It was a bitter cold night for August. There 
was a skin of ice on the water-pail at daybreak. 
We were glad to be up and away for an early 
start. The river grew wilder and more diffi- 
cult. There were rapids, and ruined dams built 
by the lumbermen years ago. At these places 
the trout were larger, and so plentiful that it 
was easy to hook two at a cast. It came on to 
rain furiously while we were eating our lunch. 
But we did not seem to mind it any more than 
the fish did. Here and there the river was com- 
pletely blocked by fallen trees. The guides 

203 



AU LABGE 

called it houchee, "corked," and leaped out 
gayly into tlie water with their axes to "un- 
cork" it. We passed through some pretty lakes, 
unknown to the map-makers, and arrived, before 
sundown, at the Lake of the Bear, where we 
were to spend a couple of days. The lake was 
fuU of floating logs, and the water, raised by 
the heavy rains and the operations of the lum- 
bermen, was several feet above its usual level. 
Nature's landing-places were all blotted out, 
and we had to explore halfway around the shore 
before we could get out comfortably. We raised 
the tents on a small shoulder of a hill, a few 
rods above the water; and a glorious camp-fire 
of birch logs soon made us forget our misery 
as though it had not been. 

The name of the Lake of the Beautiful Trout 
made us desire to visit it. The portage was said 
to be only fifty acres long (the arpent is the 
popular measure of distance here), but it passed 
over a ridge of newly burned land, and was so 
entangled with ruined woods and desolate of 
birds and flowers that it seemed to us at least 
five miles. The lake was charming — a sheet 
of singularly clear water, of a pale green tinge, 
surrounded by wooded hills. In the translucent 
depths trout and pike live together, but whether 
in peace or not I cannot tell. Both of them 
grow to an enormous size, but the pike are 

204 



AU LARGE 

larger and have more capacious jaws. One of 
them broke my tackle and went off with a sil- 
ver spoon in his mouth, as if he had been born 
to it. Of course the guides vowed that they 
saw him as he passed under the canoe, and 
declared that he must weigh thirty or forty 
pounds. The spectacles of regret always mag- 
nify. 

The trout were coy. We took only five of 
them, perfect specimens of the true Salvelinus 
fontinalis^ with square tails, and carmine spots 
on their dark, mottled sides ; the largest weighed 
three pounds and three-quarters, and the others 
were almost as heavy. 

On our way back to the camp we found the port- 
age beset by innumerable and bloodthirsty foes. 
There are four grades of insect malignity in the 
woods. The mildest is represented by the winged 
idiot that John Burroughs' little boy called a 
"blunderhead." He dances stupidly before 
your face, as if lost in admiration, and finishes 
his pointless tale by getting in your eye, or down 
your throat. The next grade is represented by 
the midges. " Bite 'em no see 'em," is the In- 
dian name for these invisible atoms of animated 
pepper which settle upon you in the twilight 
and make your skin burn like fire. But their 
hour is brief, and when they depart they leave 
not a bump behind. One step lower in the 

205 



AU LABGE 

scale we find tlie mosquito, or rather lie finds 
us, and makes his poisoned mark upon our 
skin. But after all, he has his good qualities. 
The mosquito is a gentlemanly pirate. He car- 
ries his weapon openly, and gives notice of an 
attack. He respects the decencies of life, and 
does not strike below the belt, or creep down 
the back of your neck. But the black fly is at 
the bottom of the moral scale. He is an un- 
mitigated ruffian, the plug-ugly of the woods. 
He looks like a tiny, immature house-fly, with 
white legs, as if he must be innocent. But, in 
fact, he crawls like a serpent and bites like a 
dog. No portion of the human frame is sacred 
from his greed. He takes his pound of flesh 
anywhere, and does not scruple to take the 
blood with it. As a rule you can defend your- 
self, to some degree, against him, by wearing a 
head-net, tying your sleeves around your wrists 
and your trousers around your ankles, and 
anointing yourself with grease, flavoured with 
pennyroyal, for which cleanly and honest scent 
he has a coarse aversion. But sometimes, espe- 
cially on burned land, about the middle of a 
warm afternoon, when a rain is threatening, 
the horde of black flies descend in force and 
fury knowing that their time is short. Then 
there is no escape. Suits of chain armour, Nu- 
bian ointments of far-smelling potency, would 

206 



AU LARGE 

not save you. You must do as our guides did 
on the portage, submit to fate and walk along in 
heroic silence, like Marco Bozzaris, "bleeding 
at every pore," — or as Damon and I did, break 
into ejaculations and a run, until you reach a 
place where you can light a smudge and hold 
your head over it. 

" And yet," said my comrade, as we sat cough- 
ing and rubbing our eyes in the painful shel- 
ter of the smoke, " there are worse trials than 
this in the civilized districts : social enmities, 
and newspaper scandals, and religious persecu- 
tions. The blackest fly I ever saw is the Rev- 
erend " but here his voice was fortunately 

choked by a fit of coughing. 

A couple of wandering Indians — descendants 
of the Montagnais^ on whose hunting domain 
we were travelling — dropped in at our camp 
that night as we sat around the fire. They gave 
us the latest news about the portages on our 
further journey ; how far they had been blocked 
with fallen trees, and whether the water was 
high or low in the rivers — just as a visitor at 
home would talk about the effect of the strikes 
on the stock market, and the prospects of the 
newest organization of the non-voting classes for 
the overthrow of Tammany Hall. Every phase 
of civilization or barbarism creates its own con- 
versational currency. The weather, like the 

207 



AU LABGE 

old Spanisli dollar, is tlie only coin that passes 
everywhere. 

But our Indians did not carry much small 
change about them. They were dark, silent 
chaps, soon talked out ; and then they sat suck- 
ing their pipes before the fire, (as dumb as their 
own wooden effigies in front of a tobacconist's 
shop,) until the spirit moved them, and they 
vanished in their canoe down the dark lake. 
Our own guides were very different. They were 
as full of conversation as a spruce-tree is of gum. 
When all shallower themes were exhausted they 
would discourse of bears and canoes and lumber 
and fish, forever. After Damon and I had left 
the fire and rolled ourselves in the blankets 
in our own tent, we could hear the men going 
on and on with their simple jests and endless 
tales of adventure, until sleep drowned their 
voices. 

It was the sound of a French cliaiison that 
woke us early on the morning of our departure 
from the Lake of the Bear. A gang of lumber- 
men were bringing a lot of logs through the 
lake. Half-hidden in the cold gray mist that 
usually betokens a fine day, and wet to the waist 
from splashing about after their unwieldy flock, 
these rough fellows were singing at their work 
as cheerfully as a party of robins in a cherry- 
tree at sunrise. It was like the miller and the 

208 



AU LARGE 

two girls whom Wordsworth saw dancing in their 
boats on the Thames : 

" They dance not for me, 
Yet mine is their glee ! 
Thus pleasure is spread through the earth 

In stray gifts to be claimed by -whoever shall find 
Thus a rich loving-kindness, redundantly kind, 
Moves all nature to gladness and mirth." 

But our later thoughts of the lumbermen were 
not altogether grateful, when we arrived that 
day, after a mile of portage, at the little Riviere 
Blanche, upon which we had counted to float us 
down to Lac Tchitagama, and found that they 
had stolen all its water to float their logs down 
the Lake of the Bear. The poor little river was 
as dry as a theological novel. There was no- 
thing left of it except the bed and the bones ; it 
was like a Connecticut stream in the middle of 
August. All its pretty secrets were laid bare ; 
all its music was hushed. The pools that lin- 
gered among the rocks seemed like big tears ; 
and the voice of the forlorn rivulets that trickled 
in here and there, seeking the parent stream, was 
a voice of weeping and complaint. 

For us the loss meant a hard day's work, 
scrambling over slippery stones, and splashing 
through puddles, and forcing a way through the 
tangled thickets on the bank, instead of a plea- 
sant two hours' run on a swift current. We ate 

209 



AU LABGE 

our dinner on a sandbank in what was once the 
middle of a pretty pond; and entered, as the 
sun was sinking, a narrow wooded gorge between 
the hills, completely filled by a chain of small 
lakes, where travelling became easy and pleasant. 
The steep shores, clothed with cedar and black 
spruce and dark-blue fir-trees, rose sheer from 
the water ; the passage from lake to lake was a 
tiny rapid a few yards long, gurgling through 
mossy rocks ; at the foot of the chain there was 
a longer rapid, with a portage beside it. We 
emerged from the dense bush suddenly and found 
ourselves face to face with Lake Tchitagama. 

How the heart expands at such a view ! Nine 
miles of shining water lay stretched before us, 
opening through the mountains that guarded it 
on both sides with lofty walls of green and gray, 
ridge over ridge, point beyond point, until the 
vista ended in 

" Yon orange sunset waning slow." 

At a moment like this one feels a sense of exul- 
tation. It is a new discovery of the joy of liv- 
ing. And yet, my friend and I confessed to each 
other, there was a tinge of sadness, an inexpli- 
cable regret mingled with our joy. Was it the 
thought of how few human eyes had even seen 
that lovely vision ? Was it the dim foreboding 
that we might never see it again? Who can 

210 



AU LARGE 

explain the secret pathos of Nature's loveliness ? 
It is a touch of melancholy inherited from our 
mother Eve. It is an unconscious memory of 
the lost Paradise. It is the sense that even if 
we should find another Eden, we would not be 
fit to enjoy it perfectly, nor stay in it forever. 

Our first camp on Tchitagama was at the sun- 
rise end of the lake, in a bay paved with small 
round stones, laid close together and beaten 
firmly down by the waves. There, and along 
the shores below, at the mouth of a little river 
that foamed in over a ledge of granite, and in 
the shadow of cliffs of limestone and feldspar, 
we trolled and took many fish : pike of enormous 
size, fresh-water sharks, devourers of nobler 
game, fit only to kill and throw away ; huge old 
trout of six or seven pounds, with broad tails 
and hooked jaws, fine fighters and poor food ; 
stupid, wide-mouthed chub — ouitouche, the In- 
dians call them — biting at hooks that were not 
baited for them ; and best of all, high-bred 
ouananiche, pleasant to capture and delicate to 
eat. 

Our second camp was on a sandy point at the 
sunset end of the lake — a fine place for bath- 
ing, and convenient to the wild meadows and 
blueberry patches, where Damon went to hunt 
for bears. He did not find any ; but once he 
heard a great noise in the bushes, which he 

211 



AU LARGE 

thought was a bear; and he declared that he 
got quite as much excitement out of it as if it 
had had four legs and a mouthful of teeth. 

He brought back from one of his expeditions 
an Indian letter, which he had found in a cleft 
stick by the river. It was a sheet of birch-bark 
with a picture drawn on it in charcoal ; five In- 
dians in a canoe paddling up the river, and one 
in another canoe pointing in another direction ; 
we read it as a message left by a hunting party, 
telling their companions not to go on up the 
river, because it was already occupied, but to 
turn off on a side stream. 

There was a sign of a different kind nailed to 
an old stump behind our camp. It was the top 
of a soap-box, with an inscription after this 
fashion : 

AD. MEYER & B. LEVIT 

Soap Mfrs. N. Y. 
Camped here july 18 — 
1 Trout 17^ Pounds. II Ouan 
anisHes 18 |- Pounds. One 
Pike 1471 lbs. 

There was a combination of piscatorial pride 
and mercantile enterprise in this quaint device, 
that took our fancy. It suggested also a curious 
question of psychology in regard to the inhibi- 
tory influence of horses and fish upon the human 
nerve of veracity. We named the place " Point 
Ananias." 

212 



AU LARGE 

And yet, in fact, it was a wild and lonely 
spot, and not even the Hebrew inscription could 
spoil the sense of solitude that surrounded us 
when the night came, and the storm howled 
across the lake, and the darkness encircled us 
with a wall that only seemed the more dense and 
impenetrable as the firelight blazed and leaped 
within the black ring. 

" How far away is the nearest house, 
Johnny?" 

" I don't know ; fifty miles, I suppose." 

" And what would you do if the canoes were 
burned, or if a tree fell and smashed them? " 

" Well, I 'd say a Pater nostei\ and take bread 
and bacon enough for four days, and an axe, and 
plenty of matches, and make a straight line 
through the woods. But it would n't be a joke, 
M'sieu', I can tell you." 

The river Peribonca, into which Lake Tchi- 
tagama flows without a break, is the noblest of 
all the streams that empty into Lake St. John. 
It is said to be more than three hundred miles 
long, and at the mouth of the lake it is per- 
haps a thousand feet wide, flowing with a deep, 
still current through the forest. The dead- 
water lasted for several miles ; then the river 
sloped into a rapid, spread through a net of 
islands, and broke over a ledge in a cataract. 
Another quiet stretch was followed by another 

213 



AU LABGE 

fall, and so on, along the whole course of the 
river. 

We passed three of these falls in the first 
day's voyage (by portages so steep and rough 
that an Adirondack guide would have turned 
gray at the sight o£ them), and camped at night 
just below the Chute du Diable, where we 
found some ouananiche in the foam. Our tents 
were on an islet, and all around we saw the 
primeval, savage beauty of a world unmarred 
by man. 

The river leaped, shouting, down its double 
stairway of granite, rejoicing like a strong man 
to run a race. The after-glow in the western 
sky deepened from saffron to violet among the 
tops of the cedars, and over the cliffs rose the 
moonlight, paling the heavens but glorifying 
the earth. There was something large and 
generous and untrammelled in the scene, recall- 
ing one of Walt Whitman's rhapsodies : — 

" Earth of departed sunsets ! Earth of the mountains misty- 
topped ! 

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with 
blue! 

Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river ! " 

All the next day we went down with the 
current. Regiments of black spruce stood in 
endless files like grenadiers, each tree capped 
with a thick tuft of matted cones and branches. 

214 




O 



b/) 



AU LARGE 

Tall white birches leaned out over the stream, 
Narcissus-like, as if to see their own beauty in 
the moving mirror. There were touches of 
colour on the banks, the ragged pink flowers of 
the Joe-Pye-weed (which always reminds me of a 
happy, good-natured tramp), and the yellow ear- 
drops of the jewel-weed, and the intense blue of 
the closed gentian, that strange flower which, 
like a reticent heart, never opens to the light. 
Sometimes the river spread out like a lake, 
between high bluffs of sand fully a mile apart ; 
and again it divided into many channels, wind- 
ing cunningly down among the islands as if it 
were resolved to slip around the next barrier of 
rock without a fall. There were eight of these 
huge natural dams in the course of that day's 
journey. Sometimes we followed one of the 
side canals, and made the portage at a distance 
from the main cataract ; and sometimes we ran 
with the central current to the very brink of the 
chute, darting aside just in time to escape going 
over. At the foot of the last fall we made 
our camp on a curving beach of sand, and spent 
the rest of the afternoon in fishing. 

It was interesting to see how closely the 
guides could guess at the weight of the fish by 
looking at them. The ouananiche are much 
longer in proportion to their weight than trout, 
and a novice almost always overestimates them. 

215 



AU LARGE 

But the guides were not deceived. " This one 
will weigh four pounds and three-quarters, and 
this one four pounds, but that one not more than 
three pounds ; he is meagre, M'sieu', but he is 
meagre." When we went ashore and tried the 
sj)ring balance (which every angler ought to 
carry with him, as an aid to his conscience), the 
guides' guess usually proved to be within an 
ounce or two of the fact. Any one of the senses 
can be educated to do the work of the others. 
The eyes of these experienced fishermen were as 
sensitive to weight as if they had been made to 
use as scales. 

Below the last fall the Peribonca flows for a 
score of miles with an unbroken, ever-widening 
stream, through low shores of forest and bush 
and meadow. Near its mouth the Little Peri- 
bonca joins it, and the immense flood, nearly 
two miles wide, pours into Lake St. John. 
Here we saw the first outpost of civilization — a 
huge unpainted storehouse, where supplies are 
kept for the lumbermen and the new settlers. 
Here also we found the tiny, lame steam launch 
that was to carry us back to the Hotel Roberval. 
Our canoes were stowed upon the roof of the 
cabin, and we embarked for the last stage of 
our long journey. 

As we came out of the river-mouth, the o]3po- 
site shore of the lake was invisible, and a stiff 

216 



AU LARGE 

" Nor 'wester " was rolling big waves across the 
bar. It was like putting out into the open sea. 
The launch laboured and puffed along for four 
or five miles, growing more and more asthmatic 
with every breath. Then there was an explo- 
sion in the engine-room. Some necessary, part 
of the intestinal machinery had blown out. 
There was a moment of confusion. The captain 
hurried to drop the anchor, and the narrow craft 
lay rolling in the billows. 

What to do? The captain shrugged his 
shoulders like a Frenchman. " Wait here, I 
suppose." But how long ? " Who knows ? 
Perhaps till to-morrow ; perhaps the day after. 
They will send another boat to look for us in 
the course of time." 

But the quarters were cramped ; the weather 
looked ugly ; if the wind should rise, the cranky 
launch would not be a safe cradle for the night. 
Damon and I preferred the canoes, for they at 
least would float if they were capsized. So we 
stepped into the frail, buoyant shells of bark once 
more, and danced over the big waves towards the 
shore. We made a camp on a wind-swept point 
of sand, and felt like shipwrecked mariners. 
But it was a gilt-edged shipwreck. For our lar- 
der was still full, and as if to provide us with 
the luxuries as well as the necessities of life. 
Nature had spread an inexhaustible dessert of 

217 



AU LAEGE 

tlie largest and most luscious blueberries around 
our tents. 

After supper, strolling along the beach, we 
debated the best way of escape ; whether to send 
one of our canoes around the eastern shore of 
the lake that night, to meet the steamer at the 
Island House and bring it to our rescue ; or 
to set out the next morning, and paddle both 
canoes around the western end of the lake, 
thirty miles, to the Hotel Koberval. While 
we were talking, we came to a dry old birch-tree, 
with ragged, curling bark. " Here is a torch," 
cried Damon, " to throw light upon the situ- 
ation." He touched a match to it, and the 
flames flashed up the tall trunk until it was 
transformed into a pillar of fire. But the sud- 
den illumination burned out, and our counsels 
were wrapt again in darkness and uncertainty, 
when there came a great uproar of steam- 
whistles from the lake. They must be signal- 
ling for us. What could it mean ? 

We fired our guns, leaped into a canoe, 
leaving two of the guides to break camp, and 
paddled out swiftly into the night. It seemed 
an endless distance before we found the feeble 
light where the crippled launch was tossing at 
anchor. The captain shouted something about 
a larger steamboat and a raft of logs, out in the 
lake, a mile or two beyond. Presently we saw 

218 



AU LABGE 

the lights, and the orange glow of the cabin win- 
dows. Was she coming, or going, or standing 
still? We paddled on as fast as we could, 
shouting and firing off a revolver until we had 
no more cartridges. We were resolved not to 
let that mysterious vessel escape us, and threw 
ourselves with energy into the novel excitement 
of chasing: a steamboat in the dark. 

Then the lights began to swing around ; the 
throbbing of paddle-wheels grew louder and 
louder; she was evidently coming straight to- 
wards us. At that moment it flashed upon us 
that, while she had plenty of lights, we had 
none! We were lying, invisible, right across 
her track. The character of the steamboat 
chase was reversed. We turned and fled, as 
the guides say, a quatre pattes, into illimitable 
space, trying to get out of the way of our too 
powerful friend. It makes considerable differ- 
ence, in the voyage of life, whether you chase 
the steamboat, or the steamboat chases you. 

Meantime our other canoe had approached 
unseen. The steamer passed safely between the 
two boats, slackening speed as the pilot caught 
our loud halloo ! She loomed up above us like 
a man-of-war, and as we climbed the ladder 
to the main-deck we felt that we had indeed 
gotten out of the wilderness. My old friend. 
Captain Savard, made us welcome. He had 

219 



AU LABGE 

been sent out, miicli to his disgust, to catch a 
runaway boom of logs and tow it back to Rober- 
val ; it would be an all night affair ; but we must 
take possession of his stateroom and make our- 
selves comfortable ; he would certainly bring us 
to the hotel in time for breakfast. So he went 
off on the upj^er deck, and we heard him stamp- 
ing about and yelling to his crew as they strug- 
gled to get their unwieldy drove of six thousand 
logs in motion. 

All night long we assisted at the lumbermen's 
difficult enterprise. We heard the steamer 
snorting and straining at her clumsy, stubborn 
convoy. The hoarse shouts of the crew, dis- 
guised in a mongrel dialect which made them 
(perhaps fortunately) less intelligible and more 
forcible, mingled with our broken dreams. 

But it was, in fact, a fitting close of our voy- 
age. For what were we doing ? It was the last 
stas^e of the woodman's labour. It was the 
gathering of a wild herd of the houses and 
churches and ships and bridges that grow in the 
forests, and bringing them into the fold of hu- 
man service. I wonder how often the inhabi- 
tants of the snug Queen Anne cottage in the 
suburbs remembers the picturesque toil and 
varied hardship that it has cost to hew and drag 
his walls and floors and pretty peaked roofs out 
of the backwoods. It might enlarge his home, 

220 



AU LARGE 

and make his musings by tlie winter fireside less 
commonplace, to give a kindly thougiit now and 
then to the lono^ chain of human workers through 
whose hands the timber of his house has passed, 
since it first felt the stroke of the axe in the 
snow-bound winter woods, and floated, through 
the spring and summer, on far-off lakes and 
little rivers, au large, 

221 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN. 



" Those 7vho wish io forget pavtful thoughts do well to absent themselves 
for a tune from tlie ties and objects that recall them ; but we can be 
said only to fulfil our destiny in the place tkat gave us birth. I should 
on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in travel- 
ling abroad, if I could any^vhere borrow aftoiJier life to spend after- 
wards at home.^^ —"WihiAXt,\ Hazlitt; On Going a Journey. 



^Mma^ii 




TROUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN. 

The peculiarity of troiit-fisliing in the Traun 
is that one catches principally grayling. But 
in this it resembles some other pursuits which 
are not without their charm for minds open to 
the pleasures of the unexpected — for example, 
reading George Borrow's Bible in Spain with a 
view to theological information, or going to the 
opening night at the Academy of Design with 
the intention of looking at pictures. 

Moreover, there are really trout in the Traun, 
rari nantes in gurgite ; and in some places more 
than in others; and all of high spirit, though 
few of great size. Thus the angler has his 
favourite problem: Given an unknown stream 
and two kinds of fish, the one better than the 
other; to find the better kind, and determine 
the hour at which they will rise. This is sport. 

As for the little river itself, it has so many 
beauties that one does not think of asking 
whether it has any faults. Constant fulness, 
and crystal clearness, and refreshing coolness of 
living water, pale green like the jewel that is 

225 



TBOUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN. 

called aqua marina^ flowing over beds of clean 
sand and bars of polished gravel, and dropping 
in momentary foam from rocky ledges, between 
banks tliat are shaded by groves of fir and ash 
and poplar, or through dense thickets of alder 
and willow, or across meadows of smooth ver- 
dure sloj)ing up to quaint old-world villages — 
all these are features of the ideal little river. 

I have spoken of these personal qualities 
first, because a truly moral writer ought to 
make more of character than of position. A 
good river in a bad country would be more 
worthy of affection than a bad river in a good 
country. But the Traun has also the advan- 
tages of an excellent worldly position. For it 
rises all over the Salzkammergut, the summer 
hunting-ground of the Austrian Emperor, and 
flows through that most picturesque corner of 
his domain from end to end. Under the des- 
olate cliffs of the Todtengebirge on the east, 
and below the shining ice-fields of the Dachstein 
on the south, and from the green alps around 
St. Wolfgang on the west, the translucent waters 
are gathered in little tarns, and shot through 
roaring brooks, and spread into lakes of won- 
drous beauty, and poured through growing 
streams, until at last they are all imited just 
below the summer villa of his Kaiserly and 
Kingly Majesty, Francis Joseph, and flow away 

226 




One of the Sources of the Traiin 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TBAUN 

northward, through the rest of his game-pre- 
serve, into the Traunsee. It is an imperial play- 
ground, and such as I would consent to hunt 
the chamois in, if an inscrutable Providence 
had made me a kingly kaiser, or even a plain 
king or an unvarnished kaiser. But, failing 
this, I was perfectly content to spend a few idle 
days in fishing for trout and catching grayling, 
at such times and places as the law of the Aus- 
trian Empire allowed. 

For it must be remembered that every stream 
in these over-civilized European countries be- 
longs to somebody, by purchase or rent. And 
all the fish in the stream are supposed to belong 
to the person who owns or rents it. They do 
not know their master's voice, neither will they 
follow when he calls. But they are theoretically 
his. To this legal fiction the untutored American 
must conform. He must learn to clothe his nat- 
ural desires in the raiment of lawful sanction, 
and take out some kind of a license before he 
follows his impulse to fish. 

It was in the town of Aussee, at the junction 
of the two highest branches of the Traun, that 
this impulse came upon me, mildly irresistible. 
The full bloom of mid-July gayety in that 
ancient watering-place was dampened, but not 
extinguished, by two days of persistent and sur- 
prising showers. I had exhausted the possibili- 

227 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TBAUN 

ties of interest in the old Gothic church, and 
felt all that a man should feel in deciphering 
the mural tombstones of the families who were 
exiled for their faith in the days of the Refor- 
mation. The throngs of merry Hebrews from 
Vienna and Buda-Pesth, amazingly arrayed as 
mountaineers and milk-maids, walking up and 
down the narrow streets under umbrellas, had 
Cleopatra's charm of an infinite variety ; but 
custom staled it. The woodland paths, winding 
everywhere through the plantations of fir-trees 
and provided with appropriate names on wooden 
labels, and benches for rest and conversation at 
discreet intervals, were too moist for even the 
nymphs to take delight in them. The only 
creatures that suffered nothing by the rain were 
the two swift, limpid Trauns, racing through 
the woods, like eager and unabashed lovers, to 
meet in the middle of the village. They were as 
clear, as joyous, as musical as if the sun were 
shining. The very sight of their opalescent 
rapids and eddying pools was an invitation to 
that gentle sport which is said to have the merit 
of growing better as the weather grows worse. 
I laid this fact before the landlord of the 
hotel of the Erzherzog Johann, as poetically 
as I could, but he assured me that it was of 
no consequence without an invitation from the 
gentleman to whom the streams belonged ; and 

228 



TBOUT-FISHING IN THE TBAUN 

he had gone away for a week. The landlord 
was such a good-natured person, and such an 
excellent sleeper, that it was impossible to be- 
lieve that he could have even the smallest in- 
accuracy upon his conscience. So I bade him 
farewell, and took my way, four miles through 
the woods, to the lake from which one of the 
streams flowed. 

It was called the Griindlsee. As I do not 
know the origin of the name, I cannot consist- 
ently make any moral or historical reflections 
upon it. But if it has never become famous, 
it ought to be, for the sake of a cozy and busy 
little inn, perched on a green hill beside the lake 
and overlooking the whole length of it, from the 
groups of toy villas at the foot to the heaps of 
real mountains at the head. This inn kept a 
thin but happy landlord, who provided me with 
a blue license to angle, for the inconsiderable 
sum of fifteen cents a day. This conferred the 
right of fishing not only in the Griindlsee, but 
also in the smaller tarn of Toplitz, a mile above 
it, and in the swift stream which united them. 
It all coincided with my desire as if by magic. 
A row of a couple of miles to the head of the 
lake, and a walk through the forest, brought me 
to the smaller pond ; and as the afternoon sun 
was ploughing pale furrows through the showers, 
I waded out on a point of reeds and cast the 

229 



TEOUT-FISHING IN THE TEAUN 

artful fly in the shadow of the great cliffs of the 
Dead Mountains. 

It was a fit scene for a lone fisherman. But 
four sociable tourists promptly appeared to act 
as spectators and critics. Fly-fishing usually 
strikes the German mind as an eccentricity which 
calls for remonstrance. After one of the tourists 
had suggestively narrated the tale of seven trout 
which he had caught in another lake, with 
worms, on the previous Sunday, they went away 
for a row (with salutations in which politeness 
but thinly veiled their pity), and left me still 
whipping the water in vain. Nor was the for- 
tune of the day much better in the stream be- 
low. It was a long and wet wade for three fish 
too small to keep. I came out on the shore of 
the lake, where I had left the row-boat, with an 
empty bag and a feeling of damp discourage- 
ment. 

There was stiU an hour or so of daylight, and 
a beautiful place to fish where the stream poured 
swirling out into the lake. A rise, and a large 
one, though rather slow, awakened my hoj^es. 
Another rise, evidently made by a heavy fish, 
made me certain that virtue was about to be 
rewarded. The third time the hook went home. 
I felt the solid weight of the fish against the 
spring of the rod, and that curious thrill which 
runs up the line and down the arm, changing, 

230 



TBOUT-FISHING IN THE TBAUN. 

somehow or other, into a pleasurable sensation 
of excitement as it reaches the brain. But it 
was only for a moment; and then came that 
foolish, feeble shaking of the line from side to 
side which tells the angler that he has hooked a 
great, big, leather-mouthed chub — a fish which 
Izaak Walton says " the French esteem so mean 
as to call him Un Yilain." Was it for this 
that I had come to the country of Francis 
Joseph ? 

I took off the flies and put on one of those 
phantom minnows which have immortalized the 
name of a certain Mr. Brown. It swung on a 
long line as the boat passed back and forth 
across the current, once, twice, three times — 
and on the fourth circle there was a sharp 
strike. The rod bent ahnost double, and the 
reel sang shrilly to the first rush of the fish. 
He ran ; he doubled ; he went to the bottom and 
sulked ; he tried to go under the boat ; he did 
all that a game fish can do, except leaping. 
After twenty minutes he was tired enough to be 
lifted gently into the boat by a hand slipped 
around his gills, and there he was, a lachs- 
forelle of three pounds' weight : small pointed 
head; silver sides mottled with dark spots; 
square, powerful tail and large fins — a fish not 
unlike the land-locked salmon of the Saguenay, 

but more delicate. 

231 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TBAUN 

Half an hour later he was lying on the grass 
in front of the Inn. The waiters paused, with 
their hands full of dishes, to look at him ; and 
the landlord called his guests, including my 
didactic tourists, to observe the superiority of 
the trout of the Griindlsee. The maids also 
came to look ; and the buxom cook, with her 
spotless apron and bare arms akimbo, was drawn 
from her kitchen, and pledged her culinary 
honour that such a pracht-kerl should be served 
up in her very best style. The angler who is 
insensible to this sort of indirect flattery through 
his fish does not exist. Even the most indiffer- 
ent of men thinks more favourably of people 
who know a good trout when they see it, and 
sits down. to his supper with kindly feelings. 
Possibly he reflects, also, upon the incident as a 
hint of the usual size of the fish in that neigh- 
bourhood. He remembers that he may have 
been favoured in this case beyond his deserts by 
good-fortune, and resolving not to put too heavy 
a strain upon it, considers the next place where 
it would be well for him to angle. 

Hallstatt is about ten miles below Aussee. 
The Traun here expands into a lake, very dark 
and deep, shut in by steep and lofty mountains. 
The railway runs along the eastern shore. On 
the other side, a mile away, you see the old 
town, its white houses clinging to the cliff like 

232 




C/3 



TB OUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

lichens to the face of a rock. The guide-book 
calls it " a highly original situation." But this 
is one of the cases where a little less originality 
and a little more reasonableness might be de- 
sired, at least by the permanent inhabitants. A 
ledge under the shadow of a precipice makes a 
trying winter residence. The people of Hall- 
statt are not a blooming race : one sees many 
dwarfs and crij^ples among them. But to the 
summer traveller the place seems wonderfully 
picturesque. Most of the streets are flights of 
stejis. The high-road has barely room to edge 
itself through among the old houses, between 
the window-gardens of bright flowers. On the 
hottest July day the afternoon is cool and shady. 
The gay, little skiffs and long, open gondolas 
are flitting continually along the lake, which is 
the main street of Hallstatt. 

The incongruous, but comfortable, modern 
hotel has a huge glass veranda, where j^ou can 
eat your dinner and observe human nature in 
its transparent holiday disguises. I was much 
pleased and entertained by a family, or confed- 
eracy, of people attired as peasants — the men 
with feathered hats, green stockings, and bare 
knees — the women with bright skirts, bodices, 
and silk neckerchiefs — who were always in 
evidence, rowing gondolas with clumsy oars, 
meeting the steamboat at the wharf several 

233 



TBOUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

times a day, and filling the miniature garden of 
the hotel with rustic greetings and early Salz- 
karamergut attitudes. After much conjecture, 
I learned that they were the family and friends 
of a newspaper editor from Vienna. They had 
the literary instinct for local colour. 

The fishing at Hallstatt is at Obertraun. 
There is a level stretch of land above the lake, 
where the river flows peaceably, and the fish 
have leisure to feed and grow. It is leased to a 
peasant, who makes a business of supplying the 
hotels with fish. He was quite willing to give 
permission to an angler ; and I engaged one of 
his sons, a capital young fellow, whose natural 
capacities for good fellowship were only ham- 
pered by a most extraordinary German dialect, 
to row me across the lake, and carry the net 
and a small green barrel full of water to keep 
the fish alive, according to the custom of the 
country. The first day we had only four trout 
large enough to put into the barrel; the next 
day I think there were six ; the third day, I re- 
member very well, there were ten. They were 
pretty creatures, weighing from half a pound to 
a pound each, and coloured as daintily as bits of 
French silk, in silver gray with faint pink spots. 

There was plenty to do at Hallstatt in the 

mornings. An hour's walk from the town there 

was a fine waterfall, three hundred feet high. 

234 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

On the side of the mountain above the lake was 
one of the salt-mines for which the region is cel- 
ebrated. It has been worked for ages by many- 
successive races, from the Celt downward. Per- 
haps even the men of the Stone Age knew of it, 
and came hither for seasoning to make the flesh 
of the cave-bear and the mammoth more palata- 
ble. Modern pilgrims are permitted to explore 
the long, wet, glittering galleries with a guide, 
and slide down the smooth wooden rollers which 
join the different levels of the mines. This pas- 
time has the same fascination as sliding down 
the balusters; and it is said that even queens 
and princesses have been delighted with it. 
This is a touching proof of the fundamental 
simplicity and unity of our human nature. 

But by far the best excursion from Hallstatt 
was an all-day trip to the Zwieselalp — a moun- 
tain which seems to have been especially created 
as a point of view. From the bare summit you 
look right into the face of the huge, snowy 
Dachstein, with the wild lake of Gosau gleaming 
at its foot; and far away on the other side your 
vision ranges over a confusion of mountains, 
with all the white peaks of the Tyrol stretched 
along the horizon. Such a wide outlook as this 
helps the fisherman to enjoy the narrow beauties 
of his little rivers. No sport is at its best with- 
out interruption and contrast. To appreciate 

235 



TEOUT-FISHING IN THE TBAUN 

wading, one ought to climb a little on odd 
days. 

Ischl is about ten or twelve miles below Hall- 
statt, in the valley of the Traun. It is the fash- 
ionable summer-resort of Austria. I found it 
in the high tide of amusement. The shady 
esplanade along the river was crowded with 
brave women and fair men, in gorgeous rai- 
ment; the hotels were overflowing; and there 
were various kinds of music and entertainments 
at all hours of day and night. But all this did 
not seem to affect the fishing. 

The landlord of the Kbnigin Elizabeth, who 
is also the Burgomaster and a gentleman of 
varied accomplishments and no leisure, kindly 
furnished me with a fishing license in the shape 
of a large pink card. There were many rules 
printed upon it : " All fishes under nine inches 
must be gently restored to the water. No in- 
strument of capture must be used except the 
angle in the hand. The card of legitimation 
must be produced and exhibited at the polite 
request of any of the keepers of the river." 
Thus duly authorized and instructed, I sallied 
forth to seek my pastime according to the law. 

The easiest way, in theory, was to take the 
afternoon train up the river to one of the vil- 
lages, and fish down a mile or two in the even- 
ing, returning by the eight o'clock train. But 

236 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

in practice the habits of the fish interfered seri- 
ously with the latter part of this plan. 

On my first day I had spent several hours in 
the vain effort to catch something better than 
small grayling. The best time for the trout was 
just approaching, as the broad light faded from 
the stream ; already they were beginning to 
feed, when I looked up from the edge of a pool 
and saw the train rattling down the valley below 
me. Under the circumstances the only thing to 
do was to go on fishing. It was an even pool 
with steep banks, and the water ran through it 
very straight and swift, some four feet deep and 
thirty yards across. As the tail-fly reached the 
middle of the water, a fine trout literally turned 
a somersault over it, but without touching it. 
At the next cast he was ready, taking it with a 
rush that carried him into the air with the fly 
in his mouth. He weighed three-quarters of a 
pound. The next one was equally eager in ris- 
ing and sharp in playing, and the third might 
have been his twin sister or brother. So, after 
casting for hours and taking nothing in the 
most beautiful pools, I landed three trout from 
one unlikely place in fifteen minutes. That was 
because the trout's supper-time had arrived. So 
had mine. I walked over to the rambling old 
inn at Goisern, sought the cook in the kitchen, 
and persuaded her, in spite of the lateness of the 

237 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

hour, to boil the largest of the fish for my sup- 
per, after which I rode peacefully back to Ischl 
by the eleven o'clock train. 

For the future I resolved to give up the illu- 
sory idea of coming home by rail, and ordered 
a little one-horse carriage to meet me at some 
point on the high-road every evening at nine 
o'clock. In this way I managed to cover the 
whole stream, taking a lower part each day, 
from the lake of Hallstatt down to Ischl. 

There was one part of the river, near Laufen, 
where the current was very strong and water- 
fally, broken by ledges of rock. Below these it 
rested in long, smooth reaches, much beloved by 
the grayling. There was no difficulty in getting 
two or three of them out of each run. 

The grayling has a quaint beauty. His 
appearance is aesthetic, like a fish in a pre- 
Kaphaelite picture. His colour, in midsummer, 
is a golden gray, darker on the back, and with 
a few black spots just behind his gills, like 
patches put on to bring out the pallor of his 
complexion. He smells of wild thyme when he 
first comes out of the water, wherefore St. Am- 
brose of Milan complimented him in courtly 
fashion : " Quid sj^ecie tua gratius f Quid 
odore fragrantius f Quod mella fragrant^ hoc 
tuo corpore sjnras.''^ But the chief glory of 
the grayling is the large iridescent fin on his 

238 



TEOUT-FISHING IN THE TEAUN 

back. You see it cutting the water as lie swims 
near tlie surface ; and wlien you have him on 
the bank it arches over him like a rainbow. 
His mouth is under his chin, and he takes the 
fly gently, by suction. He is, in fact, and to 
speak plainly, something of a sucker ; but then 
he is a sucker idealized and refined, the flower 
of the family. Charles Cotton, the ingenious 
young friend of Walton, was all wrong in call- 
ing the grayling "one of the deadest-hearted 
fishes in the world." He fights and leaps and 
whirls, and brings his big fin to bear across the 
force of the current with a variety of tactics 
that woidd put his more aristocratic fellow- 
citizen, the trout, to the blush. Twelve of these 
pretty fellows, with a brace of good trout for 
the top, filled my big creel to the brim. And 
yet, such is the inborn hypocrisy of the human 
heart that I always pretended to myself to be 
disappointed because there were not more trout, 
and made light of the grayling as a thing of 
naught. 

The pink fishing license did not seem to be of 
much use. Its exhibition was demanded only 
twice. Once a river guardian, who was walking 
down the stream with a Belgian Baron and en- 
couraging him to continue fishing, climbed out 
to me on the end of a long embankment, and 
with proper apologies begged to be favoured with 

239 



TBOUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

a view of my document. It turned out that his 
request was a favour to me, for it discovered the 
fact that I had left my fly-book, with the pink 
card in it, beside an old mill, a quarter of a mile 
up the stream. 

Another time I was sitting beside the road, 
trying to get out of a very long, wet, awkward 
pair of wading-stockings, an occupation which 
is unfavourable to tranquillity of mind, when a 
man came up to me in the dusk and accosted 
me with an absence of politeness which in Ger- 
man amounted to an insult. 

" Have you been fishing ? " 

" Why do you want to know ? " 

" Have you any right to fish ? " 

" What right have you ask ? " 

" I am a keeper of the river. Where is your 
card? " 

" It is in my pocket. But pardon my curi- 
osity, where is your card?" 

This question appeared to paralyze him. He 
had probably never been asked for his card 
before. He went lumbering off in the dark- 
ness, muttering " My card ? Unheard of ! My 
card ! " 

The routine of angling at Ischl was varied 
by an excursion to the Lake of St. Wolfgang 
and the Schafberg, an isolated mountain on 
whose rocky horn an inn has been built. It 

240 




^•H '' 



fcuO 

c 
he 



C/3 

o 






TROUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

stands up almost like a bird-house on a pole, 
and commands a superb prospect ; northward, 
across the rolling plain and the Bavarian forest ; 
southward, over a tumultuous land of peaks and 
precipices. There are many lovely lakes in 
sight ; but the loveliest of all is that wliich takes 
its name from the old saint who wandered 
hither from the country of the " furious 
Franks " and built his peaceful hermitage on 
the Falkenstein. What good taste some of those 
old saints had ! 

There is a venerable church in the village, 
with pictures attributed to Michael Wohlgemuth, 
and a chapel which is said to mark the spot 
where St. Wolfgang, who had lost his axe far 
up the mountain, found it, like Longfellow's 
arrow, in an oak, and " still unbroke." The 
tree is gone, so it was impossible to verify the 
story. But the saint's well is there, in a pavil- 
ion, with a bronze image over it, and a profitable 
inscription to the effect that the poorer pil- 
grims, " who have come unprovided with either 
money or wine, should be jolly well contented 
to find the water so fine." There is also a 
famous echo farther up the lake, which repeats 
six syllables with accurac3^ It is a strange co- 
incidence that there are just six syllables in the 
name of "der heilige Wolfgang." But when 
you translate it into English, the inspiration of 

241 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TBAUN 

the echo seems to be less exact. The sweetest 
thing about St. Wolfgang was the abundance of 
purple cyclamens, clothing the mountain mead- 
ows, and filling the air with delicate fragrance 
like the smell of lilacs around a New England 
farm-house in early June. 

There was still one stretch of the river above 
Ischl left for the last evening's sport. I re- 
member it so well : the long, deep place where 
the water ran beside an embankment of stone, 
and the big grayling poised on the edge of the 
shadow, rising and falling on the current as a 
kite rises and falls on the wind and balances 
back to the same position ; the murmur of the 
stream and the hissing of the pebbles underfoot 
in the rapids as the swift water rolled them over 
and over; the odour of the fir-trees, and the 
streaks of warm air in quiet places, and the 
faint whiffs of wood-smoke wafted from the 
houses, and the brown flies dancing heavily up 
and down in the twilight ; the last good pool, 
where the river was divided, the main part mak- 
ing a deep, narrow curve to the right, and the 
lesser part bubbling into it over a bed of stones 
with half-a-dozen tiny waterfalls, with a fine 
trout lying at the foot of each of them and ris- 
ing merrily as the white fly passed over him — 
surely it was all very good, and a memory to be 
grateful for. And when the basket was full, it 

242 



TROUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

was pleasant to put off the heavy wading-shoes 
and the long rubber-stockings, and ride home- 
ward in an open carriage through the fresh 
night air. That is as near to sybaritic luxury 
as a man should care to come. 

The lights in the cottages are twinkling like 
fii-e-flies, and there are small groups of people 
singing and laughing down the road. The 
honest fisherman reflects that this world is only 
a place of pilgrimage, but after all there is a 
good deal of cheer on the journey, if it is made 
with a contented heart. He wonders who the 
dwellers in the scattered houses may be, and 
weaves romances out of the shadows on the cur- 
tained windows. The lamps burning in the 
wayside slu'ines tell him stories of human love 
and patience and hope, and of divine forgive- 
ness. Dream-2)ictures of life float before him, 
tender and luminous, filkd with a vague, soft 
atmosphere in which the simplest outlines gain 
a strange significance. They are like some of 
Millet's paintings — " The Sower," or " The 
Sheepfold," — there is very little detail in them ; 
but sometimes a little means so much. 

Then the moon slips ujd into the sky from 
behind the eastern hills, and the fisherman be- 
gins to think of home, and of the foolish, fond 
old rhymes about those whom the moon sees 
far away, and the stars that have the power to 

243 



TBOUT-FISHING IN THE TRAUN 

fulfil wishes — as if the celestial bodies kiiew 
or cared anything about our small nerve-thrills 
which we call affection and desires ! But if 
there were Some One above the moon and stars 
who did know and care, Some One who could 
see the places and the people that you and I 
would give so much to see, Some One who could 
do for them all of kindness that you and I fain 
would do, Some One able to keep our beloved in 
perfect peace and watch over the little children 
sleeping in their beds beyond the sea — what 
then ? Why, then, in the evening hour, one 
might have thoughts of home that would go 
across the ocean by way of heaven, and be bet- 
ter than dreams, almost as good as prayers. 

244 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 



" Come live with me, and be my love, 
A nd we will all the pleasures prove 
That valleys, groves, or hills, or field. 
Or woods and steepy mountains yield. 

" There we will rest our sleepy heads. 
And happy hearts, on balsam beds ; 
A nd every day go forth to fish 
In foamy streams for ottananiche." 

Old Song with a New Ending, 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

It has been asserted, on high philosophical 
authority, that woman is a problem. She is 
more ; she is a cause of problems to others. This 
is not a theoretical statement. It is a fact of 

experience. 

Every year, when the sun passes the summer 

solstice, the 

" Two souls with but a single thought," 

of whom I am so fortunate as to be one, are sum- 
moned by that portion of our united mind which 
has at once the right of putting the question and 
of casting the deciding vote, to answer this con- 
undrum : How can we go abroad without cross- 
ing the ocean, and abandon an interesting family 
of children without getting completely beyond 
their reach, and escape from the frying-pan of 
housekeeping without falling into the fire of the 
summer hotel ? This apparently insoluble prob- 
lem we usually solve by going to camp in Canada. 
It is indeed a foreign air that breathes around 
us as we make the harmless, friendly voyage 
from Point Levis to Quebec. The boy on the 

247 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

ferry-boat, who cajoles us into buying a copy of 
Le Moniteu7' containing last month's news, has 
the address of a true though diminutive French- 
man. The landlord of the quiet little inn on 
the outskirts of the town welcomes us with Gallic 
effusion as well-known guests, and rubs his 
hands genially before us, while he escorts us to 
our apartments, groping secretly in his memory 
to recall our names. When we walk down the 
steep, quaint streets to revel in the purchase of 
moccasins and water-proof coats and camping 
supplies, we read on a wall the familiar but 
transformed legend, L"^ enfant pleurs^ il veut son 
Camjplioria^ and remember with joy that no in- 
fant who weeps in French can impose any re- 
sponsibility upon us in these days of our renewed 
honeymoon. 

But the true delight of the expedition begins 
when the tents have been set up, in the forest 
back of Lake St. John, and the green branches 
have been broken for the woodland bed, and the 
fire has been lit under the open sky, and, the 
livery of fashion being all discarded, I sit down 
at a log table to eat supper with my lady Grey- 
gown. Then life seems simple and amiable and 
well worth living. Then the uproar and con- 
fusion of the world die away from us, and we 
hear only the steady murmur of the river and 
the low voice of the wind in the tree-tops. Then 

248 




" And every day go forth to fish 
In foaming- streams for Ouananiclie " 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

time is long, and the only art that is needful for 
its enjoyment is short and easy. Then we taste 
true comfort, while we lodge with Mother Green 
at the Sign of the Balsam Bough. 



UNDER THE WHITE BIRCHES. 

Men may say what they will in praise of their 
houses, and grow eloquent upon the merits of 
various styles of architecture, but, for our part, 
we are agreed that there is nothing to be com- 
pared with a tent. It is the most venerable and 
aristocratic form of human habitation. Abra- 
ham and Sarah lived in it, and shared its hospi- 
tality with angels. It is exempt from the base 
tyranny of the plumber, the paper-hanger, and 
the gas-man. It is not immovably bound to one 
dull spot of earth by the chains of a cellar and 
a system of water-pipes. It has a noble free- 
dom of locomotion. It follows the wishes of its 
inhabitants, and goes with them, a travelling 
home, as the spirit moves them to explore the 
wilderness. At their pleasure, new beds of wild 
flowers surround it, new plantations of trees 
overshadow it, and new avenues of shining water 
lead to its ever-open door. What the tent lacks 
in luxury it makes up in liberty : or rather let 
us say that liberty itself is the greatest luxury. 

249 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

Another thing is worth remembering — a fam- 
ily which lives in a tent never can have a skeleton 
in the closet. 

But it must not be supposed that every spot 
in the woods is suitable for a camp, or that 
a good tenting-ground can be chosen without 
knowledge and forethought. One of the re- 
quisites, indeed, is to be found everywhere in the 
St. John region ; for all the lakes and rivers are 
full of clear, cool water, and the traveller does 
not need to search for a spring. But it is always 
necessary to look carefully for a bit of smooth 
ground on the shore, far enough above the water 
to be dry, and slightly sloping, so that the head 
of the bed may be higher than the foot. Above 
all, it must be free from big stones and serpen- 
tine roots of trees. A root that looks no bigger 
than an inch-worm in the daytime assumes the 
proportions of a boa-constrictor at midnight — 
when you find it under your hip-bone. There 
should also be plenty of evergreens near at hand 
for the beds. Spruce will answer at a pinch ; it 
has an aromatic smell ; but it is too stiff and 
humpy. Hemlock is smoother and more flex- 
ible ; but the spring soon wears out of it. The 
balsam-fir, with its elastic branches and thick 
flat needles, is the best of all. A bed of these 
boughs a foot deep is softer than a mattress and 
as fragrant as a thousand Christmas-trees. Two 

250 



AT TEE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

things more are needed for tlie ideal camp-ground 
— an open situation, where the breeze will drive 
away the flies and mosquitoes, and an abundance 
of dry firewood within easy reach. Yes, and a 
third thing must not be forgotten ; for, says my 
lady Greygown : 

" I should n't feel at home in camp unless I 
could sit in the door of the tent and look out 
across flowing water." 

All these conditions are met in our favourite 
camping place below the first fall in the Grande 
Decharge. A rocky point juts out into the river 
and makes a fine landing for the canoes. There 
is a dismantled fishing-cabin a few rods back in 
the woods, from which we can borrow boards for 
a table and chairs. A group of cedars on the 
lower edge of the point opens just wide enough 
to receive and shelter our tent. At a good dis- 
tance beyond ours, the guides' tent is pitched ; 
and the big camp-fire burns between the two 
dwellings. A pair of white birches lift their 
leafy crowns far above us, and after them we 
name the place Le Camp aux Bouleaux, 

" Why not call trees people ? — since, if you 
come to live among them year after year, you 
will learn to know many of them personally, and 
an attachment will grow up between you and 
them individually." So writes that Doctor Am- 
abilis of woodcraft, W. C. Prime, in his book, 

251 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

Among the l^orthern ffiUs, and straightway 
launches forth into eulogy on the white birch. 
And truly it is an admirable, lovable, and com- 
fortable tree, beautiful to look upon and full of 
various uses. Its wood is strong to make pad- 
dles and axe handles, and glorious to burn, blaz- 
ing up at first with a flashing flame, and then 
holding the fire in its glowing heart all through 
the night. Its bark is the most serviceable of 
all the products of the wilderness. In Russia, 
they say, it is used in tanning, and gives its sub- 
tle, sacerdotal fragrance to Russia leather. But 
here, in the woods, it serves more primitive ends. 
It can be peeled off in a huge roll from some 
giant tree and fashioned into a swift canoe to 
carry man over the waters. It can be cut into 
square sheets to roof his shanty in the forest. 
It is the paper on which he writes his woodland 
despatches, and the flexible material which he 
bends into drinking-cups of silver lined with 
gold. A thin strip of it wra]3ped around the 
end of a candle and fastened in a cleft stick 
makes a practicable chandelier. A basket for 
berries, a horn to call the lovelorn moose through 
the autumnal woods, a canvas on which to draw 
the outline of great and memorable fish — all 
these and many other indispensable luxuries are 
stored up for the skilful woodsman in the birch 
bark. 

252 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

Only do not rob or mar tlie tree, unless you 
really need what it has to give you. Let it 
stand and grow in virgin majesty, ungirdled and 
unscarred, while the trunk becomes a firm pillar 
of the forest temple, and the branches spread 
abroad a refuge of bright green leaves for the 
birds of the air. Nature never made a more 
excellent piece of handiwork. " And if," said 
my lady Greygown, "I should ever become a 
dryad, I would choose to be transformed into a 
white birch. And then, when the days of my 
life were numbered, and the sap had ceased to 
flow, and the last leaf had fallen, and the dry 
bark hung around me in ragged curls and 
streamers, some wandering hunter would come 
in the wintry night and touch a lighted coal to 
my body, and my spirit would flash up in a fiery 
chariot into the sky." 

The chief occupation of our idle days on the 
Grande Decharge was fishing. Above the camp 
spread a noble pool, more than two miles in cir- 
cumference, and diversified with smooth ba3^s 
and whirling eddies, sand beaches and rocky 
islands. The river poured into it at the head, 
foaming and raging down a long chute^ and 
swept out of it just in front of our camp in a 
merry, musical rapid. It was full of fish of 
various kinds — long-nosed pickerel, wall-eyed 
pike, and stupid chub. But the prince of the 

253 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

pool was the fighting ouananiche, the little sal- 
mon of St. John. 

Here let me chant thy praise, thou noblest 
and most high-minded fish, the cleanest feeder, 
the merriest liver, the loftiest leaper, and the 
bravest warrior of all creatures that swim ! Thy 
cousin, the trout, in his purple and gold with 
crimson spots, wears a more splendid armour 
than thy russet and silver mottled with black, 
but thine is the kinglier nature. His courage 
and skill compared with thine 

"Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine." 

The old salmon of the sea who begot thee, long 
ago, in these inland waters, became a backslider, 
descending again to the ocean, and grew gross 
and heavy with coarse feeding. But thou, un- 
salted salmon of the foaming floods, not land- 
locked, as men call thee, but choosing of thine 
own free-will to dwell on a loftier level, in the 
pure, swift current, of a living stream, hast 
grown in grace and risen to a higher life. Thou 
art not to be measured by quantity, but by 
quality, and thy five pounds of pure vigour will 
outweigh a score of pounds of flesh less vital- 
ized by spirit. Thou feedest on the flies of the 
air, and thy food is transformed into an aerial 
passion for flight, as thou springest across the 
pool, vaulting towards the sky. Thine eyes 

254 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

have grown large and keen by peering through 
the foam, and the feathered hook that can de- 
ceive thee must be deftly tied and delicately 
cast. Thy tail and fins, by ceaseless conflict 
with the rapids, have broadened and strength- 
ened, so that they can flash thy slender body 
like a living arrow up the fall. As Lancelot 
among the knights, so art thou among the fish, 
the plain-armoured hero, the sunburnt champion 
of all the water-folk. 

Every morning and evening, Greygown and 
I would go out for ouananiche, and sometimes 
we caught plenty and sometimes few, but we 
never came back without a good catch of happi- 
ness. There were certain places where the fish 
liked to stay. For examjole, we always looked 
for one at the lower corner of a big rock, very 
close to it, where he could poise himself easily 
on the edge of the strong downward stream. 
Another likely place was a straight run of wa- 
ter, swift, but not too swift, with a sunken stone 
in the middle. The ouananiche does not like 
crooked, twisting water. An even current is far 
more comfortable, for then he discovers just how 
much effort is needed to balance against it, and 
keeps up the movement mechanically, as if he 
were half asleep. But his favourite place is un- 
der one of the floating islands of thick foam 
that gather in the corners below the falls. The 

255 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

matted flakes give a grateful shelter from the 
sun, I fancy, and almost all game-fish love to 
lie in the shade ; but the chief reason why the 
ouananiche haunt the drifting white mass is be- 
cause it is full of flies and gnats, beaten down 
by the spray of the cataract, and sprinkled all 
through the foam like plums in a cake. To this 
natural confection the little salmon, lurking in 
his corner, plays the part of Jack Horner all day 
long, and never wearies. 

" See that helle hrou down below there ! " said 
Ferdinand, as we scrambled over the huge rocks 
at the foot of the falls ; " there ought to be 
salmon there en masse.^^ Yes, there were the 
sharp noses picking out the unfortunate insects, 
and the broad tails waving lazily through the 
foam as the fish turned in the water. At this 
season of the year, when summer is nearly ended, 
and every ouananiche in the Grand Decharge 
has tasted feathers and seen a hook, it is useless 
to attempt to delude them with the large gaudy 
flies which the fishing-tackle-maker recommends. 
There are only two successful methods of angling 
now. The first of these I tried, and by casting 
delicately with a tiny brown trout-fly tied on a 
gossamer strand of gut, captured a pair of fish 
weighing about three pounds each. They fought 
against the spring of the four -ounce rod for 
nearly half an hour before Ferdinand could slip 

256 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

the net around them. But there was another 
and a broader tail still waving disdainfully on 
the outer edge of the foam. " And now," said 
the gallant Ferdinand, " the turn is to madame, 
that she should prove her fortune — attend but 
a moment, madame, while I seek the sauterelle.'' 
This was the second method: the grasshop- 
per was attached to the hook, and casting the 
line well out across the pool, Ferdinand put the 
rod into Greygown's hands. She stood poised 
upon a pinnacle of rock, like patience on a 
monument, waiting for a bite. It came. There 
was a slow, gentle pull at the line, answered by 
a quick jerk of the rod, and a noble fish flashed 
into the air. Four pounds and a half at least ! 
He leaped again and again, shaking the drops 
from his silvery sides. He rushed up the rapids 
as if he had determined to return to the lake, 
and down again as if he had changed his plans 
and determined to go to the Saguenay. He 
sulked in the deep water and rubbed his nose 
against the rocks. He did his best to treat that 
treacherous grasshopper as the whale served 
Jonah. But Greygown, through all her little 
screams and shouts of excitement, was steady 
and sage. She never gave the fish an inch of 
slack line; and at last he lay glittering on 
the rocks, with the black St. Andrew's crosses 
clearly marked on his plump sides, and the iri- 

257 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

descent spots gleaming on Lis small, shapely 
head. ^' Une belief ^^ cried Ferdinand, as he 
held up the fish in triumph, " and it is madame 
who has the good fortune. She understands 
well to take the large fish — is it not?" Grey- 
gown stepped demurely down from her pinnacle, 
and as we drifted down the pool in the canoe, 
under the mellow evening sky, her conversation 
betrayed not a trace of the pride that a victori- 
ous fisherman would have shown. On the con- 
trary, she insisted that angling was an affair of 
chance — which was consoling, though I knew it 
was not altogether true — and that the smaller 
fish were just as pleasant to catch and better to 
eat, after all. For a generous rival, commend 
me to a woman. And if I must compete, let 
it be with one who has the grace to dissolve the 
bitter of defeat in the honey of a mutual self- 
congratulation. 

We had a garden, and our favourite path 
through it was the portage leading around the 
falls. We travelled it very frequently, making 
an excuse of idle errands to the steamboat-land- 
ing on the lake, and sauntering along the trail 
as if school were out and would never keep 
again. It was the season of fruits rather than 
of flowers. Nature was reducing the decora- 
tions of her table to make room for the ban- 
quet. She offered us berries instead of blossoms. 

258 




Une Belie" 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

There were the light coral clusters of the 
dwarf cornel set in whorls of pointed leaves ; 
and the deep blue bells of the CUntonia hore- 
alis (which the White Mountain people call the 
bear-berry, and I hope the name will stick, for 
it smacks of the woods, and it is a shame to 
leave so free and wild a plant under the burden 
of a Latin name) ; and the gray, crimson- 
veined berries for which the Canada Mayflower 
had exchanged its feathery white bloom ; and 
the ruby drops of the twisted stalk hanging like 
jewels along its bending stem. On the three- 
leaved table which once carried the gay flower 
of the wake-robin, there was a scarlet lump like 
a red pepper escaped to the forest and run wild. 
The partridge-vine was full of rosy provision for 
the birds. The dark tin}^ leaves of the creeping 
snow-berry were all sprinkled over with delicate 
drops of spicy foam. There were a few belated 
raspberries, and, if we chose to go out into the 
burnt ground, we could find blueberries in 
plenty. 

But there was still bloom enough to give that 
festal air without which the most abundant feast 
seems coarse and vulgar. The pale gold of the 
loosestrife had faded, but the deeper yellow of 
the goldenrod had begun to take its place. The 
blue banners of the fleur-de-lis had vanished 
from beside the springs, but the purple of the 

259 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

asters was appearing. Closed gentians kept 
their secret inviolate, and bluebells trembled 
above the rocks. The quaint pinkish-white 
flowers of the turtle-head showed in wet places, 
and instead of the lilac racemes of the purple- 
fringed orchis, which had disappeared with mid- 
summer, we found now the slender braided 
spikes of the lady's-tresses, latest and lowliest 
of the orchids, pale and pure as nuns of the 
forest, and exhaling a celestial fragrance. There 
is a secret pleasure in finding these delicate 
flowers in the rough heart of the wilderness. 
It is like discovering the veins of poetry in the 
character of a guide or a lumberman. And to 
be able to call the plants by name makes them 
a hundredfold more sweet and intimate. Nam- 
ing things is one of the oldest and simplest of 
human pastimes. Children play at it with their 
dolls and toy animals. In fact, it was the first 
game ever played on earth, for the Creator who 
planted the garden eastward in Eden knew well 
what would please the childish heart of man, 
when He brought all the new-made creatures to 
Adam, " to see what he would call them." 

Our rustic bouquet graced the table under 
the white-birches, while we sat by the fire and 
watched our four men at the work of the camp 
— Joseph and Raoul chopping wood in the dis- 
tance ; Fran9ois slicing juicy rashers from the 

260 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

flitch of bacou ; and Ferdinand, the cAe/*, heat- 
ing the frying-pan in preparation for supper. 

" Have you ever thought," said Greygown, 
in a contented tone of voice, " that this is the 
only period of our existence when we attain to 
the kixury of a French cook ? " 

"And one with the grand manner, too," I 
replied, "for he never fails to ask what it is 
that madame desires to eat to-day, as if the lar- 
der of Lucullus were at his disposal, though he 
knows well enough that the only choice lies 
between broiled fish and fried fish, or bacon 
with eggs and a rice omelet. But I like the fic- 
tion of a lordly ordering of the repast. How 
much better it is than having to eat what is 
flung before you at a summer boarding-house by 
a scornful waitress ! " 

" Another thing that pleases me," continued 
my lady, " is the unbreakableness of the dishes. 
There are no nicks in the edges of the best 
plates here ; and, oh ! it is a happy thing to 
have a home without bric-a-brac. There is no- 
thing liere that needs to be dusted." 

"And no engagements for to-morrow," I ejac- 
ulated. " Dishes that can't be broken, and plans 
that can — that 's the ideal of housekeeping." 

" And then," added my philosopher in skirts, 

" it is certainly refreshing to get away from all 

one's relations for a little while." 

261 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

" But how do you make that out? " I asked, 
in mild surprise. " What are you going to do 
with me ? " 

" Oh," said she, with a fine air of indepen- 
dence, " I don't count you. You are not a rela- 
tion, only a connection by marriage." 

"Well, my dear," I answered, between the 
meditative puffs of my pipe, " it is good to con- 
sider the advantages of our present situation. 
We shall soon come into the frame of mind of 
the Sultan of Morocco when he camped in the 
Vale of Rabat. The place pleased him so well 
that he staid until the very pegs of his tent took 
root and grew up into a grove of trees around 
his pavilion." 

II. 

KENOGAMI. 

The guides were a little restless under the 
idle regime of our lazy camp, and urged us to 
set out upon some adventure. Ferdinand was 
like the uncouth swain in Lycidas. Sitting 
upon the bundles of camp equipage on the 
shore, and crying, — 

"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new," 

he led us forth to seek the famous fishing- 
grounds on Lake Kenogami. 

We skirted the eastern end of Lake St. John 

262 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

in our two canoes, and pushed up La Belle 
Riviere to Hebertville, where all the children 
turned out to follow our procession through the 
village. It was like the train that tagged after 
the Pied Piper of Hamelin. We embarked 
again, surrounded by an admiring throng, at the 
bridge where the main street crossed a little 
stream, and paddled up it, through a score of 
back yards and a stretch of reedy meadows, 
where the wild and tame ducks fed together, 
tempting the sportsman to sins of ignorance. 
We crossed the placid Lac Vert, and after a 
carry of a mile along the highroad towards Chi- 
coutimi, turned down a steep hill and pitched 
our tents on a crescent of silver sand, with the 
long, fair water of Kenogami before us. 

It is amazing to see how quickly these woods- 
men can make a camp. Each one knew pre- 
cisely his share of the enterprise. One sprang 
to chop a dry spruce log into fuel for a quick 
fire, and fell a harder tree to keep us warm 
through the night. Another stripped a pile of 
boughs from a balsam for the beds. Another 
cut the tent-poles from a neighbouring thicket. 
Another unrolled the bundles and made ready 
the cooking utensils. As if by magic, the mira- 
cle of the camp was accomplished. — 

*' The bed was made, the room was fit, 
By punctual eve the stars were lit " — 
263 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

but Greygown always insists upon completing 
that quotation from Stevenson in lier own voice ; 
for this is the way it ends, — 

" When we put up, my ass and I, 
At God's green caravanserai." 

Our permanent camp was another day's voy- 
age down the lake, on a beach opposite the 
Point Ausable. There the water was contracted 
to a narrow strait, and in the swift current, close 
to the point, the great trout had fixed their 
spawning-bed from time immemorial. It was 
the first week in September, and the magnates 
of the lake were already assembling — the Com- 
mon Councilmen and the Mayor and the whole 
Committee of Seventy. There were giants in 
that place, rolling lazily about, and chasing each 
other on the surface of the water. " Look, 
M'sieu' ! " cried Francois, in excitement, as we 
lay at anchor in the gray morning twilight ; 
" one like a horse has just leaped behind us ; I 
assure you, big like a horse ! " 

But the fish were shy and dour. Old Caston- 
nier, the guardian of the lake, lived in his hut 
on the shore, and flogged the water, early and 
late, every day with his home-made flies. He 
was anchored in his dugout close beside us, and 
grinned with delight as he saw his over-educated 
trout refuse my best casts. " They are here, 
M'sieu', for jon can see them," he said, by way 

264 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

of discouragement, "but it is difficult to take 
them. Do you not find it so ? " 

In the back of my fly-book I discovered a 
tiny phantom minnow — a dainty affair of var- 
nished silk, as light as a feather — and quietly 
attached it to the leader in place of the tail-fly. 
Then the fun began. 

One after another the big fish dashed at that 
deception, and we played and netted them, 
until our score was thirteen, weighing alto- 
gether tliirty-five pounds, and the largest ^ve 
pounds and a half. The guardian was mystified 
and disgusted. He looked on for a while in 
silence, and then pulled up anchor and clattered 
ashore. He must have made some inquiries 
and reflections during the day, for that night 
he paid a visit to our camp. After telling bear 
stories and fish stories for an hour or two by 
the fire, he rose to depart, and tapping his fore- 
finger solemnly upon my shoulder, delivered 
himself as follows : — 

"You can say a proud thing when you go 
home, M'sieu' — that you have beaten the old 
Castonnier. There are not many fishermen who 
can say that. But," he added, with confidential 
emphasis, " c'etait voire sacre pHit poissoji qui a 
fait celar 

That was a touch of human nature, my rusty 
old guardian, more welcome to me than all the 

265 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

morning's catch. Is there not always a "con- 
founded little minnow " responsible for our fail- 
ures? Did you ever see a school-boy tumble 
on the ice without stooping immediately to re- 
buckle the straj) of his skates ? And would not 
Ignotus have painted a masterpiece if he could 
have found good brushes and a proper canvas ? 
Life's shortcomings would be bitter indeed if we 
could not find excuses for them outside of our- 
selves. And as for life's successes — well, it is 
certainly wholesome to remember how many of 
them are due to a fortunate position and the 
proper tools. 

Our tent was on the border of a coppice of 
young trees. It was pleasant to be awakened 
by a convocation of birds at sunrise, and to 
watch the shadows of the leaves dance out upon 
our translucent roof of canvas. 

All the birds in the bush are early, but there 
are so many of them that it is difficult to be- 
lieve that every one can be rewarded with a 
worm. Here in Canada those little people of 
the air who appear as transient guests of spring 
and autumn in the Middle States, are in their 
summer home and breeding-place. Warblers, 
named for the magnolia and the myrtle, chest- 
nut-sided, bay-breasted, blue-backed, and black- 
throated, flutter and creep along the branches 
with simple lisping music. Kinglets, ruby- 

266 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

crowned and golden-crowned, tiny, brilliant 
sparks of life, twitter among tlie trees, breaking 
occasionally into clearer, sweeter songs. Com- 
panies of redpolls and crossbills pass chirp- 
ing tlirougli the thickets, busily seeking their 
food. The fearless, familiar chickadee repeats 
his name merrily, while he leads his family to 
explore every nook and cranny of the wood. 
Cedar wax-wings, sociable wanderers, arrive in 
numerous flocks. The Canadians call them " re- 
collets,''^ because they wear a brown crest of the 
same colour as the hoods of the monks who came 
with the first settlers to New France. They are 
a songless tribe, although their quick, reiterated 
call as they take to flight has given them the 
name of chatterers. The beautiful tree-sparrows 
and the pine-siskins are more melodious, and 
the slate-colored j uncos, flitting about the camp, 
are as garrulous as chippy-birds. All these 
varied notes come and go through the tangle of 
morning dreams. And now the noisy blue-jay is 
calling " Tliief — tliief — thief! " in the distance, 
and a pair of great pileated woodpeckers with 
crimson crests are laughing loudly in the swamp 
over some family joke. But listen ! what is 
that harsh creaking note ? It is the cry of the 
Northern shrike, of whom tradition says that 
he catches little birds and impales them on 
sharp thorns. At the sound of his voice the 

267 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

concert closes suddenly and the singers vanish 
into thin air. The hour of music is over ; the 
commonplace of day has begun. And there is 
my lady Greygown, already up and dressed, 
standing by the breakfast-table and laughing at 
my belated appearance. 

But the birds were not our only musicians at 
Kenogami. French Canada is one of the an- 
cestral homes of song. Here you can still listen 
to those quaint ballads which were sung cen- 
turies ago in Normandie and Provence. " A 
la Claire Fontaine^'' '•''Dans Paris y a-t-une 
Brune plus Belle que le Jour^^ '•'•Sur le Pont 
d' Avignon^^^ " En Poulant ma Boule^^ " La 
Poulette Grise^^ and a hundred other folk-songs 
linger among the peasants and voyageurs of these 
northern woods. You may hear 

" Malbrouek s'en va-t-en guerre — 
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine," 

and 

" Isabeau s'y promfene 
Le long de son jardin," 

chanted in the farmhouse or the lumber shanty, 
to the tunes which have come down from an un- 
known source, and never lost their echo in the 
hearts of the people. 

Our Ferdinand was a perfect fountain of 
music. He had a clear tenor voice, and so- 
laced every task and shortened every voyage 

268 



AT THE SIGN OF TEE BALSAM BOUGH 

with melody. " A song, Ferdinand, a jolly song," 
the other men would say, as the canoes went 
sweeping down the quiet lake. And then the 
leader would strike up a well-known air, and 
his companions would come in on the refrain, 
keeping time with the stroke of their paddles. 
Sometimes it would be a merry ditty : 

" My father had no girl but me, 
And yet he sent me off to sea ; 
Leap, my little Cecilia." 

Or perhaps it was : 

" I 've danced so much the livelong day, — 
Dance, my sweetheart, let 's he gay, — 
I 've fairly danced my shoes away, — 

Till evening. 
Dance, my pretty, dance once more ; 
Dance, until we break the floor." 

But more frequently the song was touched with 
a plaintive pleasant melancholy. The min- 
strel told how he had gone into the woods and 
heard the nightingale, and she had confided to 
him that lovers are often unhappy. The story 
of La Belle Frangoise was repeated in minor 
cadences — how her sweetheart sailed away to 
the wars, and when he came back the village 
church bells were ringing, and he said to him- 
self that Fran^oise had been faithless, and the 
chimes were for her marriage ; but when he 

269 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

entered the cliurcli it was her funeral that he 
saw, for she had died of love. It is strange 
how sorrow charms us when it is distant and 
visionary. Even when we are happiest we en- 
joy making music 

" Of old, unhappy, far-off things." 

"What is that song which you are singing, 
Ferdinand?" asks the lady, as she hears him 
humming behind her in the canoe. 

" Ah, madame, it is the chanson of a young 
man who demands of his blonde why she will 
not marry him. He says that he has waited 
long time, and the flowers are falling from the 
rose-tree, and he is very sad." 

" And does she give a reason ? " 

"Yes, madame — that is to say, a reason of 
a certain sort ; she declares that she is not quite 
ready; he must wait until the rose-tree adorns 
itself again." 

" And what is the end — do they get married 
at last?" 

"But I do not know, madame. The chan- 
son does not go so far. It ceases with the com- 
plaint of the young man. And it is a very 
uncertain affair — this affair of the heart — is 
it not ? " 

Then, as if he turned from such perplexing 
mysteries to something plain and sure and easy 

270 




i2 



H 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

to understand, lie breaks out into the j oiliest of 
all Canadian songs : 

" My bark canoe that flies, that flips, 
Hola ! my bark canoe ! " 



ni. 

THE ISLAND POOL. 

Among the mountains there is a gorge. And 
in the Sforjje there is a river. And in the river 
there is a pool. And in the pool there is au 
island. And on the island, for four happy days, 
there was a camp. 

It was by no means an easy matter to estab- 
lish ourselves in that lonely place. The river, 
thongh not remote from civilization, is practi- 
cally inaccessible for nine miles of its course 
by reason of the steepness of its banks, which 
are long, shaggy precipices, and the fury of 
its current, in which no boat can live. We 
heard its voice as we approached through the 
forest, and could hardly tell whether it was far 
away or near. 

There is a perspective of sound as well as 
of sight, and one must have some idea of the 
size of a noise before one can judge of its 
distance. A mosquito's horn in a dark room 
may seem like a trumpet on the battlements; 
and the tumult of a mighty stream heard 

271 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

through an unknown stretch of woods may ap- 
pear like the babble of a mountain brook close 
at hand. 

But when we came out upon the bald fore- 
head of a burnt cliff and looked down, we real- 
ized the grandeur and beauty of the unseen 
voice that we had been following. A river of 
splendid strength went leaping through the 
chasm five hundred feet below us, and at the 
foot of two snow-white falls, in an oval of dark 
topaz water, traced with curves of floating foam, 
lay the solitary island. 

The broken path was like a ladder. " How 
shall we ever get down ? " sighed Greygown, as 
we dropped from rock to rock ; and at the bot- 
tom she looked up sighing, " I know we never 
can get back again." There was not a foot of 
ground on the shores level enough for a tent. 
Our canoe ferried us over, two at a time, to the 
island. It was about a hundred paces long, 
composed of round, coggly stones, with just one 
patch of smooth sand at the lower end. There 
was not a tree left upon it larger than an alder- 
bush. The tent-poles must be cut far up on the 
mountain-sides, and every bough for our beds 
must be carried down the ladder of rocks. But 
the men were gay at their work, singing like 
mocking-birds. After all, the glow of life comes 
from friction with its difficulties. If we cannot 

272 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

find them at home, we sally abroad and create 
them, just to warm up our mettle. 

The ouananiche in the island pool were su- 
perb, astonishing, incredible. We stood on the 
cobble-stones at the upper end, and cast our 
little flies across the sweeping stream, and for 
three days the fish came crowding in to fill the 
barrel of pickled salmon for our guides' winter 
use; and the score rose, — twelve, twenty-one, 
thirty-two; and the size of the "biggest fish" 
steadily mounted — four pounds, four and a 
half, five, five and three-quarters. "Precisely 
almost six pounds," said Ferdinand, holding the 
scales ; " but we may call him six, M'sieu', for if 
it had been to-morrow that we had caught him, 
he would certainly have gained the other ounce." 
And yet, why should I repeat the fisherman's 
folly of writing down the record of that marvel- 
lous catch? We always do it, but we know that 
it is a vain thing. Few listen to the tale, and 
none accept it. Does not Christopher North, 
reviewing the Salmonia of Sir Humphry Davy, 
mock and jeer unfeignedly at the fish stories of 
that most reputable writer? But, on the very 
next page, old Christopher himself meanders 
on into a perilous narrative of the day when he 
caudit a whole cart-load of trout in a Highland 
loch. Incorrigible, happy inconsistency ! Slow 
to believe others, and full of skeptical inquiry, 

273 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

fond man never doubts one thing — tliat some- 
where in the world a tribe of gentle readers will 
be discovered to whom his fish stories will ap- 
pear credible. 

One of our days on the island was Sunday — 
a day of rest in a week of idleness. We had a 
few books ; for there are some in existence 
which will stand the test of being brought into 
close contact with nature. Are not John Bur- 
roughs' cheerful, kindly essays full of wood- 
land truth and companionship)? Can you not 
carry a whole library of musical philosophy in 
your pocket in Matthew Arnold's volume of 
selections from Wordsworth? And could there 
be a better sermon for a Sabbath in the wil- 
derness than Mrs. Slosson's immortal story of 
FisM7i^ Jimmy f 

But to be very frank about the matter, the 
camp is not stimulating to the studious side of 
my mind. Charles Lamb, as usual, has said 
what I feel : " I am not much a friend to out- 
of-doors reading. I cannot settle my spirits 
to it." 

There are blueberries growing abundantly 
among the rocks — huge clusters of them, 
bloomy and luscious as the grapes of Eshcol. 
The blueberry is nature's compensation for the 
ruin of forest fires. It grows best where the 
woods have been burned away and the soil is 

274 



AT THE SIGN OF THE B^iLSAM BOUGH 

too poor to raise another crop of trees. Surely 
it is an innocent and harmless pleasure to wan- 
der along the hillsides gathering these wild 
fruits, as the Master and His disciples once 
walked through the fields and plucked the ears 
of corn, never caring what the Pharisees thought 
of that new way of keeping the Sabbath. 

And here is a bed of moss beside a dashins: 
rivulet, inviting us to rest and be thankful. 
Hark ! There is a white-throated sparrow, on a 
little tree across the river, whistling his after- 
noon song 

" In linkM sweetness long drawn out." 

Down in Maine they call him the Peabody-bird, 
because his notes sound to them like Old man 

— Peahody^ j)ecd)ody^ 2)eahody. In New Bruns- 
wick the Scotch settlers say that he sings Lost 

— lost — Kennedy^ hennedy^ Mnnedy. But 
here in his northern home I think we can under- 
stand him better. He is singing again and again, 
with a cadence that never wearies, " Sweet — 
sweet — Canada^ Canada^ cdiiadaf^ The Can- 
adians, when they came across the sea, remem- 
bering the nightingale of southern France, bap- 
tized this little gray minstrel their rossignol, 
and the country ballads are full of his praise. 
Every land has its nightingale, if we only have 
the heart to hear him. How distinct his voice 

275 



AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH 

is — liow personal, how confidential, as if he had 
a message for us ! 

There is a breath of fragrance on the cool 
shady air beside our little stream, that seems fa- 
miliar. It is the first week of September. Can 
it be that the twin-flower of June, the delicate 
Linncea horealis, is blooming again ? Yes, here 
is the threadlike stem lifting its two frail pink 
bells above the bed of shining leaves. How 
dear an early flower seems when it comes back 
again and unfolds its beauty in a St. Martin's 
summer ! How delicate and suggestive is the 
faint, magical odour ! It is like a renewal of the 
dreams of youth. 

"And need we ever grow old?" asked my 
lady Greygown, as she sat that evening with the 
twin-flower on her breast, watching the stars 
come out along the edge of the cliffs, and tremble 
on the hurrying tide of the river. " Must we 
grow old as well as grey ? Is the time coming 
when all life will be commonplace and practical, 
and governed by a dull ' of course ' ? Shall we 
not always find adventures and romances, and a 
few blossoms returning, even when the season 
grows late ? " 

" At least," I answered, " let us believe in the 
possibility, for to doubt it is to destroy it. If 
we can only come ba(^ to nature together every 
year, and consider the flowers and the birds, 

276 



i AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSA3f BOUGH 

and confess our faults and mistakes and our un- 
belief under these silent stars, and hear the river 
murmuring our absolution, we shall die young, 
even though we live long : we shall have a treas- 
ure of memories which will be like the twin- 
flower, always a double blossom on a single stem, 
and carry with us into the unseen world some- 
thing which will make it worth while to be im- 
mortal." 

277 



A SONG AFTER SUNDOWN 



THE WOOD-NOTES OF THE VEERY. 

The moonbeams over Arno's vale in silver flood were 
pouring, 

When first I heard the nightingale a long-lost love de- 
ploring : 

So passionate, so full of pain, it sounded strange and 
eerie, 

I longed to hear a simpler strain, the wood-notes of the 
veery. 

The laverock sings a bonny lay, above the Scottish 

heather. 
It sprinkles from the dome of day like light and love 

together ; 
He drops the golden notes to greet his brooding mate, his 

dearie ; 
I only know one song more sweet, the vespers of the 

veery. 

In English gardens green and bright, and rich in fruity 

treasure, 
I 've heard the blackbird with delight repeat his merry 

measure ; 
The ballad was a lively one, the tune was loud and 

cheery, 
And yet with every setting sun I listened for the veery. 

281 



THE WOOD-NOTES OF THE VEEBY 

far away, and far away, the tawny thrush is singing, 
New England woods at close of day with that clear chant 

are ringing ; 
And when my light of life is low, and heart and flesh are 
weary, 

1 fain would hear, before I go, the wood-notes of the 

veery. 

282 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Affection, misplaced : an instance 
of, 133, 134. 

Altnaharra : 96. 

Alt-Prags, the Baths of : their ven- 
erable appearance, 170. 

Ambrose, of Milan : liis compliment 
to the Grayling, 238. 

Ampersand : derivation of the name, 
G2 ; the mountain, C2 ; the lake, 
77 ; the river, C2. 

Ananias : a point named after him, 
212. 

Anglers : the pretensions of rustic, 
exposed, 27 ; a group of, 50, 51 ; a 
friendly folk, 123, 124. 

Angling : its attractions, 3-5 ; an 
education in, 38 ff. ; Dr. Paley's 
attachment to, 115 ; a benefaction 
to fish, 135. 

Aussee : 227. 

Antinous : the cause of his death, 
IC. 

Architecture : prevailing style on 
the Restigouche, 123 ; the superi- 
ority of a tent to other forms of, 
249 ; domestic types in Canada, 
200. 

Arnold, Matthew : quoted, 120. 

Baldness : in mountains and men, 

74. 
Barrie, J. M. : 85. 
Bartlett, Virgil : a tribute to his 

memory, 04. 
Bear-stories : their ubiquity, 54. 
Bellinghausen, von Miinch : quoted, 

245. 
Birds : a good way to make their 

acquaintance, 22 ; differences in 



character, 23, 24; a convocation 
of, 206. 
Birds named : 

Blackbird, 281. 

Bluebird, 4, 23. 

Cat-bird, 22. 

Cedar-bird, 265. 

Chewink, 4, 23. 

Chickadee, 267. 

Crossbill, 267. 

Crow, Hoodie, 100. 

Cuckoo, 161. 

Ducks, "Betseys," 192. 

Eagle, 97. 

Grouse, Ruffed, 71. 

Gull, 192. 

Jay, Blue, 24, 267. 

Kingfisher, 24, 138, 192. 

Kinglet, ruby, and golden- 
crowned, 266, 267. 

Laverock, 281. 

Meadow-lark, 4. 

Nightingale, 275, 281. 

Oriole, 23. 

Owl, Great Homed, 54. 

Pewee, Wood, 22. 

Pine-Siskin, 267. 

Redpoll, 267. 

Robin, 3, 23. 

Sand-piper, Spotted, 22. 

Sheldrake, 68. 

Shrike, 267. 

Sky-lark, 160, 279. 

Sparrow, Song, 4, 23. 
Sparrow, Tree, 267. 

Sparrow, White-throated, 138," 

273. 
Thistle-bird, 4. 
Thrush, Hermit, 4, 25. 



285 



INDEX 



Thrush, "Wood, 25. 

Thrush, Wilson's, 25, 280, 281. 

Veery, 25, 280, 281. 

Warbler, black-throated green, 

72. 
Warbler, various kinds in Can- 
ada, 264. 
Woodpecker, 28. 
Woodpecker, Great - pileated, 

2G7. 
Woodpecker, Red-headed, 71. 
Yellow-throat, Maryland, 22. 
Bishops : the proper costume for, 

27 ; a place frequented by, 151. 
Black, William : his " Princess of 

Thule," 85 ff. 
Black-fly : his diabolical nature, 

206. 
Blackmore, R. D. : quoted, 33. 
Blunderhead : a winged idiot, 205. 
Boats : Adirondack, 67. 
Bonaparte, Napoleon : as a comrade 

on foot, 16. 
Bridges, Roberts : quoted, 81. 
Burroughs, John : his views on 

walking, 59 ; his essays, 272. 
Byron, George, Lord : misquoted, 
236. 

Cambridge : looks best from the 
rear, 19. 

Camping-out : a first experience, 
53-55 ; lessons to be learned from 
it, 56 ; discretion needed in, 250 ; 
skUl of guides in preparation for, 
263. 

Character : expressed in looks, 13. 

Chub : a mean fish, 231. 

Cities : enlivened by rivers, 19. 

Conservatism : Scotch style of, 94. 

Contentment : an example of, 262. 

Conversation : best between two, 
108 ; the most valuable kind, 110 ; 
egoism the salt of, 133 ; the fine 
art of, 139 ; current coin in, 207. 

Cook : the blessing of having a good- 
humoured, 193. 



Cortina : 152-164. 

Cotton, Charles : quoted, 239. 

Courtesy : in a custom-house officer, 
149 ; among the Tyrolese peas- 
ants, 176 ; of a French Canadian, 
194. 

Cow-boy : pious remark of a, 30. 

Cowley, Abraham : on littleness, 16. 

Credulity : of anglers in regard to 
their own fish-stories, 273. 

Crockett, S. R. : quoted, 26, 85. 

Darwin, Charles : quoted, 28. 
Davy, Sir Humphrey : quoted, 115. 
Deer-hunting : in the Adirondacks, 

69. 
Depravity, total : in trout, 102. 
Diogenes : as a bedfellow, 16. 
Dolomites : described, 145, 146 ff. 
Driving : four-in-hand, 147 ; after 

dinner, 149 ; the French Canadian 

idea of, 199. 

Economy : an instance of, 202. 

Education : a wise method of, 38. 

Education : in a canoe, 195. 

Edwards, Jonathan : his love of 
nature, 28. 

Egoism, modest : the salt of conver- 
sation, 133. 

Epics : not to be taken as discourage- 
ment to lyrics, 30. 

Epigrams : of small practical value, 
110. 

Failures : the philosophic way of 
accounting for, 266. 

Fame : the best kind of, 155. 

Farming : demoralized on the Res- 
tigouche, 122. 

Fashion ; unnecessary for a well- 
dressed woman to follow, 158. 

Fatherhood : the best type of, 38 ; 
its significance, 195. 

Fiction : its uses, 84, 85, 89. 

Fish : fact that the largest always 
escape, 128. 



286 



INDEX 



Flowers named : 

Alpenrosen, 144, 160, 177. 

Anemone, 4. 

Arrow-head, 12. 

Asters, 22, 2G0. 

Bear-berry (Clintonia borealis), 
259. 

Bee-balm, 21. 

Blue-bells, 2G0. 

Canada May-flower, 259. 

Cardinal flower, 22. 

Ciuquefoil, 21. 

Clover, 160. 

Crowfoot, 21. 

Cyclamen, 191, 242. 

Dahlia, 200. 

Daisy, ox-eye, 13. 
Dandelion, 4. 
Dwarf cornel, 259. 
Fireweed, 202. 
Fleur-de-lis, 191, 259. 
Forget-me-not, 100. 
Fuchsia, 100. 
Gentian, Alpine, 160. 
Gentian, closed, 22, 215, 260. 
Golden-rod, 22, 259. 
Hare-bell, 21. 
Heather, 17, 83 ff. 
Hepatica, 21. 
Hollyhock, 200. 
Honey-suckle, 96. 
Jewel- weed, 21, 215. 
Joe-Pye weed, 215. 
Knot-weed, 12. 
Ladies'-tresses, 200. 
Lilac, 35, 258. 

Loose-Strife, yellow, 21, 259. 
Marigold, 200. 
Meadow-rue, 191. 
Orchis, purple-fringed, 21, 191, 

260. 
Pansy, 176. 
Partridge-berry, 259. 
Polygala, fringed, 87. 
Pyrola, 191. 
Rose, 35, 100, 108. 
Bauta Lucia, 1 GO. 



Self-heal, 21. 

Snow-berry, 259. 

Spring-beauty, 21. 

St. John's-wort, 21. 

Star-grass, 21. 

Tansy, 35. 

Trillium, painted, 21. 

Tuhps, 3. 

Twinflower, 15, 276. 

Turtle-head, 260. 

Twisted-stalk, 259. 

Violet, 21. 

Wake-Robm, 259. 

Flowers : Nature's embroidery, 21, 

159, 191, 259; the pleasure of 

knowing by name, 260; second 

bloom of, 276. 

Forests : the mid-day silence of, 71 ; 

flowers in, 160, 191, 258-260. 
Friendship: the great not always 
adapted for it, 16; pleasure in 
proximity, 13; a celestial gift, 
107. 

Gay, John : quoted, 9. 

Germans: their sentiment, 164; 
their genius for thoroughness, 
167 ; their politeness, 240. 

Gilbert, W. S. : quoted, 37. 

Goat's-milk : the proper way to 
drink it, 144 ; obliging disposition 
of the goat in regard to it, 178. 

Gray, Thomas : quoted, 24. 

Grayling : described, 238, 239. 

Gross- Venediger : the, 177-180. 

Guides : Adirondack, 67 ; Canadian, 
193-196. 



Halleck, Fitz-Greene : quoted, 207. 
HaUstatt : 232. 
Haste : the folly of, 125. 
Hazlitt, William : quoted, 221. 
Heine, Heinrich : quoted, 191. 
Hoosier Schoolmaster, the : the 

solidity of his views, 13. 
Hornet : the unexpected quality of 

his bite, 70. 

287 



INDEX 



Horse-yacht : a description of, 118 ; 

drawbacks and advantages, 125. 
Hospitality : in a Highland cottage, 

100 ; among anglers, 123 ; in an 

Alpine hut, 178. , 

Housekeeping : the ideal, 261. 
Human nature : best seen in little 

ways, 28 ; a touch of, 265. 
Humour : American, difficult for 

foreigners, 151 ; plain, best enjoyed 

out-of-doors, 189. 

Ideals : the advantage of cherishing, 

201. 
Idealist : a boy is the true, 45. 
Idleness : occasionally profitable, 

30. 
Immortality : the hope of, 112 ; love 

makes it worth having, 277. 
Indian : the noble, 207. 
Insects : classified according to 

malignity, 205 ff. 
Ischl, 236. 

James, Henry : his accuracy in 

words, 27. 
Johnson, Robert Underwood : 

quoted, 21. 

Keuogami, Lake, 262 ff. 

Lairg, 96. 

Lake George, 39 ff. 

Lamb, Charles : his poor opinion of 
aqueducts, 12 ; his disinclination 
to reading out-of-doors, 274. 

Landro, 167, 168. 

Lanier, Sidney : quoted, 25. 

Lienz, 171 ff. 

Life : more in it than making a liv- 
ing, 31. 

Littleness : praised, 16, 17. 

London : the way to see, 19. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth : 
quoted, 139. 

Love : a boy's introduction to, 44 ; a 
safe course in, 86 ; the true mean- 



ing of, 114 ; uncertainty of its 
course, 270. 

Lowell, James Russell : a reminis- 
cence of him, 10. 

Luck : defined, 56. 

Lucretius, T. : quoted, 16. 

Lumbermen : their share in making 
our homes, 220. 

Mabie, Hamilton W. : quoted, 181. 

" Maclaren, Ian, " 85. 

Manners : their charm, when plain 
and good, 176. 

Marvell, Andrew : quoted, 190. 

Medicinal Springs : an instance of 
their harmlessness, 52. 

Meditation : an aid to, 137 ; on the 
building of a house, 220 ; at night- 
fall, 242. 

Melvich, 98. 

Memory : associated with odours, 
35 ; capricious, 104 ; awakened by 
a word, 183 ; sweetest when shared 
by two, 277. 

Metapedia, 117. 

Midges : animated pepper, 205. 

Milton, John : quoted, 262, 275. 

Mint : a symbol of remembrance, 
36. 

Misurina, Lake, 165. 

Mountains : their influence, 10 ; in- 
vitations to cUmb, 63 ; growth of 
trees upon them, 73, 74 ; the 
Adirondacks, 76 ; the Dolomites, 
145 ff. ; the Hohe Tauern, 173 ff . ; 
of the Salzkammergut, 226 ff. 

Mountain-chmbing : charms of, 70 
ff. ; moderation in, 159 ; disap- 
pointment in, 179, ISO. 

Mosquito : his mitigating qualities, 
206. 

Naaman, the Syrian : his sentiment 

about rivers, 15. 
Naming things : pleasure of, 260. 
Navigable rivers : defined, 53. 
Neu-Prags : the Baths of, 170. 



288 



INDEX 



Noah : a question about, 140. 
Nuvolau, Mount, 159 £f. 

Old Age : sympathy with youth, 
109 ; the wisdom aud beauty of, 
111, 112 ; preparation for, '27G. 

Ouananiche, 192, 197, 198, 211, 214, 
215, 254 ff., 273. 

Oven : the shrine of the good house- 
wife, 201. 

Paley, the Rev. Dr. : quoted, 115. 

Patience : not the only virtue, 41. 

Peasant-life : the perils of, in the 
Tyrol, 174, 175. 

Perch : a good fish for nurses to catch, 
39. 

Philosophy : of a happy life. 111 ; of 
travel, 143 ; of success, 156 ; of 
housekeeping, 260, 261 ; of per- 
petual youth, 276, 277. 

Philosophers : a camp of, 77 ; their 
explanation of humour, 143. 

Photography : its difficulties, 78, 79 ; 
a good occupation for young 
women, 125. 

Plan, Mount, 166. 

Pike, 204, 211, 251. 

Pleasures : simple, not to be pur- 
chased with money, 141. 

Plenty : a symbol of, 64. 

Prayer : the secret of peace, 112, 
113; in a Tyrolese hut, 178; 
thoughts almost as good as, 244. 

Preaching : under supervision, 90. 

Predestination : an instance of faith 
in, 99. 

Prime, W. C. : quoted, 251. 

Pronunciation: courage in, 121. 

Prosperity : should be prepared for 
in the time of adversity, 201. 

Quarles, Francis : his emblems, 35. 
Quebec, 247. 



Railway travel : beside a little river, 
18 ; its general character, 144. 



Rapids, 187 ff. 

Relations : the advantage of tempo- 
rary separation from, 261 ; dis- 
tinguished from connections by 
marriage, 262. 
Religion : the best evidence of, 112. 
Resignation : the courage of old 

age, 111. 
Rivers : their personality, 9, 12 ; in 
different countries, 14 ; little ones 
the best, 15-17 ; methods of know- 
ing them, 20, 29 ; advantages of 
their friendship, 20-26 ; their 
small responsibilities, 29 ; pleasure 
of watching them, 137 ; variety of 
life upon, 198 ; disconsolate when 
dry, 209 ; merry in the rain, 228 ; 
the voice of, 271. 
Rivers named : 

Abana, 15. 

.^sopus, 18. 

Allegash, 17. 

A I'Ours, 199, 202. 

Amazon, 17. 

Ampersand, 17, 61. 

Amo, 18, 19. 

Aroostook, 17. 

Ausable, 17. 

Batiscan, 14. 

Beaverkill, 17, 21. 

Blanche, 209. 

Boite, 146, 147. 

Boquet, 14. 

Cam, 19. 

Connecticut, 15. 

Dee, 106. 

Delaware, 15. 

Des Aimes, 199. 

Dove, 17, 63. 

Drau, 171. 

Ericht, 17, 106. 

French Broad, 18. 

Glommen, 18. 

Grande D^charge, 186 ff., 251 
ff. 

Gula, 18. 

Halladale, 17. 



289 



INDEX 



Hudson, 15. 

Isel, 171. 

Kaaterskill, 51, 52. 

La Belle Riviere, 185, 263 ff. 

La Pipe, 185. 

Lycoming, 47. 

Metapedia, 121. 

Mississippi, 17. 

Mistassini, 18G. 

Mistook, 193. 

Moose, 17. 

Neversink, 17, 52. 

Niagara, 17. 

Opalescent, 55. 

Ouiatchouan, 185. 

Patapedia, 121. 

Penobscot, 17. 

Peribonca, 17, 186, 216 ff. 

Pharpar, 15. 

Piave, 146, 147. 

Pikouabi, 185. 

Quatawamkedgwick, 121. 

Rauma, 17. 

Racquette, 17. 

Restigouche, 17, 117 ft. 

Rienz, 18, 146. 

Rocky Run, 48. 

Rotha, 17. 

Saguenay, 185. 

Salzach, 17. 

Saranac, 17, 55, 64. 

Swiftwater, 17, 36, 57. 

Thames, 18, 19. 

Traun, 223 ft. 

Tweed, 18. 

Upsalquitch, 121. 

Wharfe, 190. 

Ziller, 17. 
Rome : the best point of view in, 

19. 
Roberval, 185. 
Rudder Grange : the author of, 13. 

St. John, Lake : 184 ff., 248 ff. 
Salmon : a literary, 92 ; a plain, 

130-132 ; a delusive, 135, 136 ; 

curious habit of leaping on Sunday, 



138 ; manner of angling for, 129, 
130. 

Sea, the : disadvantages of loving, 
10. 

Seneca, L. Annseus : his advice con- 
cerning altars, 11. 

Semiramis : her husband, 16. 

Seriousness : may be carried too far, 
30. 

Scotch character : contrasted with 
the English, 93-95 ; caution, 90, 
102 ; Orthodoxy, 103 ; true reli- 
gion, 111-113. 

Shakspere, William : quoted, 247. 

Slosson, Annie Trumbull : her story 
of Fishin' Jimmy, 274. 

Solomon : improved, 38 ; quoted, 
91. 

Songs, French, 268 ff. 

Stevenson, Robert Louis : on rivers, 
8; on friendship between young 
and old, 109 ; his last prayer, 113 ; 
on camping-out, 264. 

Stornoway, 87 ff. 

Sunday : reflections upon, 136, 137 ; 
a good way to spend, 274, 275. 

Sun-fish : their superciliousness 
when over-fed, 39. 

Tea : preferred to whiskey, 196. 
Tennyson, Alfred : quoted, 13, 24, 

29, 46, 121, 210. 
Tents : their superiority to houses, 

247. 
Time, old Father : the best way to 

get along with, 125. 
Titian : his landscapes, 148. 
Toblach, Lake of, 168, 169. 
Trees : their human associations, 

10, 11 ; their growth on mountains, 

73, 74; advisability of sparing, 

200 ; on their way to market, 220 ; 

their personality, 251 . 
Trees named : 

Alder, 48, 202, 226. 

Ash, 226. 

Balm of Gilead, 35, 200. 



290 



INDEX 



Balsam, 73, 191, 210, 250, 260, 

Beech, 71. 

Birch, white, 48, 190, 215, 252 ff. 

Birch, yellow, 70. 

Cedar, white, 190, 210, 214. 

Fir, 173, 22G, 242. 

Hemlock, 15, 22, 47, 73, 74, 
250. 

Horse-chestnut, 10. 

Larch, 149, 158. 

Maple, 9, 47, 70. 

Oak, 11, 241. 

Pine, 24, 74, 

Poplar, 200, 224, 

Pussywillow, 3, 32. 

Spruce, 15, 73, 74, 190, 208, 210, 
214, 250, 2G3. 
Trout-fishing : a beginning at, 41 ; a 
specimen of, 65 ; in Scotland, 96, 
97, 101, 102 ; in the Tyrol, 165, 
168 ; in the Traun, 225 ff. ; in 
Canada, 126, 203 ff., 264 ff. 

Universe : no man responsible for 
the charge of it, continuously, 
30. 

Utilitarianism : a mistake, 201. 

Venice : in warm weather, 143, 144. 



Veracity ; an effort to preserve it in 
a foot-note, 140 ; affected by fish, 
212. 

Virgil : quoted, 225. 

Walton, Izaak : quoted, 29, 32, 66, 
141, 231 ; his ill fortune as a fisher- 
man, 139. 

"Warner, Charles Dudley: his 
description of an open fire, 18. 

Watts, Isaac : quoted, 17, 

Whitman, Walt : quoted, 214. 

Wilson , John : his description of a 
bishop, 27 ; his skepticism about 
all fish stories but his own, 273, 

Wish : a modest, 3-5. 

Wolfgang, Saint : his lake, 240 ; his 
good taste, 241. 

Women : prudence in expressing an 
opinion about, 16 ; more conserva- 
tive than men, 157 ; problematic 
quality of, 247 ; generous rivals (in 
angling), 258. 

Words : their magic, 183. 

Wordsworth, William : quoted, 24, 
104, 192, 209. 



Youth 
276. 



the secret of preserving it, 



291 



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